


Seven

by Maldoror



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Blood, Blood and Gore, Dark, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gore, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Horror, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mutilation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Psychological Horror, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Verbal Abuse, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2018-09-24 21:20:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9787421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror/pseuds/Maldoror
Summary: After the climatic fall, Will awakens to find himself in an abandoned hospital. Or so he thinks.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just as a warning, I'm planning on taking this story in a weird, gorey, and overall gruesome direction. Weird as in out there, like mind-fuck weird. Additional tags will most definitely be added as the chapters are posted. This first chapter will be "easy going" compared to the others.  
> Also I'm terrible at coming up with titles.  
> This was not beta'd (I think this is the term) so all grammatical errors are mine.

 

 

An icy breeze skipping across his face roused Will from a deep sleep. He stirred around as he began to open his eyes. His eyelids felt glued shut together as he struggled to open them; his vision gave way to a blur as he slowly pulled them apart. Naturally, his eyelids fluttered to adjust his visual focus on the object before him. As his eyesight accommodated to the soft, yellow light in the room, he realized he was looking at the ceiling. He stared at it for a bit, noticing nothing out of the ordinary, before he looked to his left and saw an open window. Soft, blue curtains danced in erratic rhythms as the hissing wind curled through them; the conductor of a whistling orchestra. He looked out the window and saw the night sky, but looked at it with a frown on his face; something felt off about it.

 

 _No moon and no stars,_ Will thought to himself.

 

He turned his head to look down at himself and saw that he was lying on a powered hospital bed, fully clothed. A once white-collared shirt had bled into a pinkish colour, adorned with large blotches of blood on the front. There was a dull hint of pain coming from both his torso and the right side of his face. He reached for his face with his right hand and felt clean, intact skin. He moved his hand downward to lift his shirt up to see if he had been injured. He found no fresh wounds or new scars, save the souvenir Hannibal had left him years ago.

 

_Where is Hannibal? Had they been caught by the FBI?_

 

He turned his neck slightly as his eyes resumed their search of the room. He noticed the walls of the room were the same colour as the curtains that continued their dancing routine with the wind. To his far left, he spotted a metal cabinet, each drawer classified with white sticker labels. There was an anesthetic machine, turned off, to the right of the cabinet. Two IV bags hanging on metal rods stood next to the bed, and a heart rate monitor, also turned off, was to his right. His eyes came across two wooden chairs, seats covered in a turquoise fabric, on either side of his bed. Both were at an angle, and in close proximity to him, almost touching the plastic, high handles that encircled the bed. Will got up slowly, swung his body to his right, and used his right leg to push the right chair away from the bed. As he stood up, a cold front invaded his exposed neck, producing goose bumps as it whipped his skin. Will shuddered, covered his neck with his hand, and caressed it as a form of alleviation. He looked around the room again, turning his body around as he did so. The pale blue walls, the monitors set up by the bed, the wooden chairs with the turquoise seats, it all looked familiar to him. A thought hit him, then reluctance and denial followed.

 

_It couldn't be._

 

But perhaps so. He couldn't help get a sense of déjà vu because he _had_ been here many times before: it had been Abigail's hospital room. He felt his heart rate increase as he took a step back.

 

_Was it really this one? Didn't all hospital rooms look alike? Had the FBI finally caught up to them? Where were they?_

 

His mind started buzzing. He frantically looked around the room again, thinking he had looked over a spot. He half expected to see Jack step out of the shadows, armed with handcuffs, and accompanied by a team of FBI officials. However, he saw no one. He was alone in the room. Besides the faint noise of the howling wind and the flapping of the curtains, it was quiet.

Deathly quiet.

The door to his room was shut and beside it was a glass window looking out to the hallway. From where he was standing, he could tell the lights in the hallway were on. He inched closer to the window to see if there was a security guard on the other side, patrolling his room. From the looks of it, the main hallway was empty. He twisted the doorknob and slowly opened the door. He peeked out to see a deserted nursing station across from him. He looked both ways, waiting nervously for movements and sounds. When he felt he waited long enough, he stepped into the hallway and started cautiously walking. He passed the nursing station and looked down the secondary hallway intersecting the one he was on, remaining vigilant of his surroundings as he constantly looked behind him. Not a single person in sight.

The pit of anxiety that had made a home in his stomach grew into a ball, as the thought of Hannibal's whereabouts crossed his mind. He couldn't remember that night they killed Dolarhyde, or how they even survived the fall off the cliff. He headed toward the other rooms down the hallway in search of him.

 

 _Hell, anyone_ he thought to himself.

 

Room by room he looked into each one. The result of his search was coming to an astonishing conclusion; it was becoming apparent that the floor was vacant. Will's jaw tightened and his blood chilled at the thought of the entire hospital and not just this floor, being vacant. Will had never been a fan of hospitals but being in a vacant one didn't necessarily make him feel any better. He was used to quietness, especially having lived on the outskirts of cities for most of his life, but the quiet he experienced in the hospital was unsettling. It was a worse sensation than being gawked at by academics curious about his empathy. The quiet made his body behave as if he were being stalked, like a prey. He felt like he was being watched. As soon as he thought that, he heard a faint noise behind him. He whipped his head around toward the sound, his hands reaching his waist.

 

 _Right, no gun_.

 

Nothing. The hallway stood still. His heart drummed with such velocity and power, any  harder and it would physically hurt him. He scanned the hallway, his pupils dilating. Will placed his hand on his forehead as he continued walking to the end of the hallway, checking every room on the way. He suddenly came to a halt. Will walked back to the previous room, took another good look inside, then headed back to the room beside it. He started blinking frantically. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his fingers. He opened them again, to see the same thing: all the rooms were identical to the room he had awoken in. From the same medical equipments in the same spots, the same steel cabinet at the far end of the room, to the same window opened. Even the chair he had moved with his leg was positioned in the same way he had left it in the original room. It was like he had never left the room to begin with. The buzzing in his head got louder, almost deafening. He grabbed his head as if to alleviate the pulsing that the buzzing created. Will's rapid, shallow breathing made him lightheaded, he leaned against the doorway for stability. He attempted to swallow but his mouth was too dry, the saliva thickened and formed a stubborn lump that lodged itself in the back of his throat. He thought he saw the lights in the hallway flickering, but he couldn't tell if he was imagining it. He couldn't tell if he was imagining any of this.

 

_I need to get out of here_

 

He began looking for the exit, staggering down the hallway. Straight ahead he came across two elevators, one of which had an out of order sign on it. He decided against it and headed for the stairs next to them instead. He reached for the door with a number one sticker on it and a stair sign display above it. He pushed it open and only found descending stairs. Without hesitation, he climbed down them. One foot over the other, his feet moved at an incredulous, high speed, they became a blur. As he proceeded down another flight of stairs, he missed a step and tripped, tumbling down and arriving on the landing face first.

 

"Fuck" Will muttered behind his teeth.

 

He pushed himself back on his feet, grunting as he did so. He grabbed the stair railing for support and almost proceeded down another flight until he looked at the exit door before him. Will's forehead twitched at the sight of it. It also displayed the number one.

 

"Can't be," Will said. He climbed down the flight of stairs and came upon another exit door with the number one on it.

 

_Could it be an error?_

 

Will went up to it, opened it. He looked out and then brought his head back in, He partially closed the door and let out an exasperated laugh, his lips curling as he nervously shook his head. He opened the door again and walked out onto the floor. He was back where he started. It was logically impossible to have gone down so many flights of stairs and end up on the same floor, but here he was, on the same floor as before. Floor one apparently. He walked past one room after another and yet again, it was like he hadn't moved. Same rooms, same nursing station, same files on the counter.

 

"HELLO" Will yelled.

 

His voice travelled down the empty hallway, the sound wave bouncing off the walls, as the echo died and became silence. Will wanted to start laughing however, his mouth quivered and he emitted a long, shaky exhalation. He went around the nursing station and found a phone. He picked up the receiver to dial someone's number, he didn't know whose, but the line was dead. Dismayed, he dropped the receiver. It made a  _thunk_ sound as it hit the counter.

Blinking aggressively, Will had the absurd thought of exiting the hospital through a window when-

 

_CLICKCLICKLCLICKCLICKCLICK_

 

Will jumped in his spot and turned his head around. It was the same sound he had heard previously, this time it sounded closer. He looked down the other hallway that connected to the main hallway. He saw nothing in the direction from which the sound came. Will headed back to the main hallway, backing up while he maintained his view on the secondary hallway. The sound stopped, but he knew someone was there.

 

_Or something._

 

The beating of his heart was so loud in his ears, he almost didn't hear the ding sound of an elevator arriving on the floor. When he did register the sound, Will stopped dead in his tracks to look behind him. Well enough, one of the elevators had its door open, its soft overhead light beaming to him, as if beckoning him inside.

 

_CLICK.  CLICK.   CLICK.  CLICK_

 

Will turned his head back to the hallway and saw what he thought was a shadow on the floor. In the split second before he started running toward the elevator, he thought the silhouette of the shadow looked like a person crawling on the floor, a bodiless shadow. He blocked the thought out of his mind as he ran. Since he back was turned to it, what he didn't see was the shadow, with its jerky movements, closing the gap between them as it chased after him. Although he couldn't see it, he could hear it closing up on him; the clicks became incessant. He was running so fast that as he reached the elevator, he kept running, hitting the other end of the elevator with a loud thump. As if on cue, the door of the elevator starting closing, the space between the door and the elevator provided Will with a second glimpse of the thing, just an arm's length away from the elevator, before the door slid shut.

Panting, Will gripped onto a metal handle to prevent himself from falling over. He clenched at his chest, certain that his heart would burst at any given moment. His eyes remained locked on the elevator door, making sure that it was closed shut.

A few moments passed before his concentration broke. He realized that the elevator wasn't moving. He shifted his head to the right to where he saw the elevator control panel. And there, in the corner furthest from him, by the control panel, was a figure. There was someone on the elevator with him.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will encounters a stranger on the elevator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if I missed any tags.

 

 

 

Staring at the stranger ahead of him, Will felt the blood drain from his face. The person was facing the corner of the elevator, with their back to him. He kept his breathing as quiet as possible, out of fear that if he screamed or made a noise, that the person would move. The thought was ridiculous considering that seconds ago, he had slammed his body against the elevator wall when he was running away from whatever thing was chasing him. The elevator remained motionless, and likewise, the stranger stood still, not moving an inch. They were hunched forward, head tilted down. Waist-length black hair draped down their back. Will shifted briskly to the corner farthest away from the stranger.

His eyes frantically wavered around, his anxiety was clouding his vision as objects became blocks of colour. He dropped his gaze and it took him a moment before realizing that the stranger's feet weren't touching the ground. Horrified, his eyes widened as he looked back up to discover that the person was suspended by cables; a couple of cables held up each body part. Twisted at the end of each cable were large fishing hooks that were pierced into the flesh; one of which, Will could deduct, had been punctured into the nape as a cable disappeared into the sea of black hair around the neck area. The cable holding the head still, had penetrated the skull profoundly.

 

_It must have taken quite a force to hammer it in._

 

The green shirt and black pants on the body were blotted with dark, circles. Will presumed it was blood, basing it off from the droplets of blood that decorated the elevator floor. His eyes followed the taut cables and noticed they connected to a mechanism attached to the ceiling of the elevator; a motor was situated in the middle of it. Small pulleys within the mechanism above drew each cable from each extremity tight. It was both exhilarating and disturbing to look at.

Will hadn't noticed the quick, harsh nose breathing he was performing, let alone the crouching position he was suddenly in. He felt so close to fainting, he was tempted to give in, with the desire to wake up from this nightmare, but he dared not. Deep down, Will knew that he wasn't asleep. He had nightmares on the daily, and although all were graphic in nature, none were as strange or elaborate as this.  

Soon after, he heard the motor start up with a soft humming. The cable slowly lifted the head up, the head made a wet, sticky sound as it moved from its resting place. Then the mechanism on the ceiling started rotating clockwise, swiftly moving the body around counter-clockwise. Suddenly, Will was face to face with it.

A pressure built in his chest; he wanted to let it out but feared that he would never stop screaming. He had stopped blinking for so long his eyes watered. He finally blinked, doing so in rapid sequences. The body dangled before him, like a human marionette. The person was clearly dead. It had been a man in his former life before he became this. Spills of dried blood lined his pale face like bloody rivers, the lines converged around the mouth where bodily fluid pooled.

 

 _Hammered in,_ rethought Will, as he looked at the pond of blood by the hook in the head. His hand went to cover his nose; by the smell, Will could tell the body was decomposing. 

 

There was a hook in each eyebrow, the insertion started in the forehead and ended below the eyebrows. By his mouth was a hook on either side, about three centimetres from the corners of the mouth. The mouth had a permanent frown. His dry lips were swollen, and covered in blisters; one in particular, the biggest, resided on the corner of the bottom lip.

The multiple ruptured blood vessels caused the whites of his eyes to turn into a shade of pink, which made the faint, light blue colour of his iris pop out, horrifically. Will's breathing transformed into a heavy panting. He had crawled into a ball in the corner of the elevator, his legs bent upward, touching his body. He was at eye level with the man's protruding guts that embellished the front part of his body, like red party streamers. He had been gutted like a fish; a curved, continuous gash from one end of his stomach to the other. In a different light, it looked like a happy face with its large, mucous tongue sticking out.

 

 _Painful,_ Will thought, thinking back on his similar experience. It was a fleeting thought that left his mind just as fast as it had entered it.

 

Then the cables near its mouth started pulling, curving the lips upwards, and a sound came out of him. The voice sounded mechanical, and high-pitched, far from anything human. Will could have sworn he saw was a small speaker inside the man's mouth, but his mind was too preoccupied on its survival instincts to be sure.

 

"Greetings, Mr. Graham. I am glad to have finally found you. I had been expecting you earlier but I was unable to locate you. It seemed that you weren't on the main floor anymore. My name is 85. I will be your elevator operator for today."

 

Will violently shook his head side to side, he was unable to speak, so a _nnnnhhh_  sound came out of his mouth instead. His nostrils flared as his breathing accelerated. The marionette just kept staring at him with his dead eyes, one of which was being feasted on by maggots. The hooks by the eyes pulled back the eyelids exaggeratedly, so it looked like his eyes were wide open, fully alert for Will's reply. Moments passed and both remained silent. 85 turned his body to the control panel. A cable hooked to the forearm lifted his right arm to display a stump where a hand should have been; the wound looked fresh as blood dripped down the forearm from the jagged edges of the flesh. 85 used the stump to press the number two button, leaving behind blood marks. The elevator started moving; announcing its awakening with a screech. With a confused look, Will looked around him, feeling lighter as the elevator accelerated. Downwards.

 

"Fear not Mr. Graham," 85 spoke as he turned back to him. Will wish he hadn't, he didn't want to see his face anymore, least of all his eyes.

 

"I am not here to cause you harm. On the contrary, I am here to guide you on this journey so that you may be reunited with your loved one."

 

Will's ears perked at the last two words.

 

"Excuse me?" his voice croaked. 85's mouth cables pulled on the dry skin, widening his mouth to display a grotesque mirthless smile.

 

"I said I am here to guide you on this journey so that you may be reunited with your loved one. You are looking for Hannibal, aren't you?"

 

Will's brows furrowed with surprise.

 

"How... you know Hannibal?"

 

"Over here," 85's arms moved upward to gesture toward the ceiling of the elevator "we know a lot of things." Will looked at 85, confused and aghasted.

 

_There are more of them here?_

 

"Who's we?" Will asked quietly with hesitation.

 

85 paused before he answered.

 

"That's not important yet."

 

Dissatisfied with the answer, Will persisted.

 

"Where is Hannibal? Why am I here? Where is here?" Will hammered. For a second, his fear had dissipated only to for it to return when he saw 85 inching closer to him, dragging his intestines on the floor with him.

 

"Easy, Mr. Graham" 85 raised his left arm, to gesture a stop posture, exposing a hand with two missing digits.

 

"I see you have many questions. From what I know, Hannibal is located somewhere on the seventh floor. But in order to get to him, you must go through each seven floors before you can find him."

 

"What? Go through each floor?"

 

85 nodded his head. It wasn't necessarily a nod as it was his head flopping back and forth, his neck bending loosely like rubber. It kept making that horrid wet sound, like flesh being ripped apart.

 

"Yes. Think of this as a test of your will and true intentions. Each floor more challenging than the next. I am presuming that you have brought yourself here to seek him, Mr. Graham."

 

Will squinted his eyes at 85.

 

"What do you mean by that? I don't even know how I get here" Will looked around him "wherever here is."

 

85 slightly tilted his head to one side, black strands of hair draping over his stretched, peeling skin.

 

"Where here is, matters little. To obtain what one wants, every person has their own journey to follow. This is yours, Mr. Graham. What is important is that you understand that no one forced you to be here. You are here because of the decisions you made in your life. Series of events brought you to this point and like everything in life, you have the choice to continue this journey or to forgo it." 85 paused for a moment.

 

"The other floors are accessible only through this elevator. You must have figured that out by now, considering you took the stairs the first time around. I can only help you move floor to floor and answer whatever questions I can. The rest you must figure out for yourself."

 

Will was quiet, absorbing all the information as he shifted his eyes away.

 

"He must mean quite a lot to you for you to even venture around these parts. No one has made it past the 5th floor."

 

Will's heart thumped loudly. He returned his gaze to 85.

 

"What's on the 5th floor?"

 

85 straightened his head.

 

"Every journey is unique to the individual person. I have no abilities to see beyond this elevator, least of all, what people see on each floor. I am but a simple elevator operator. All I know is people never make it back to the elevator on the fifth floor."

 

Will squinted his eyes.

 

"You mean they die."

 

85 nodded his head again. Wet sounds. 

 

"What if I decide to not complete this journey? What happens to me?"

 

"Then you leave this place. You can make that decision anytime you like. But once you make it, you cannot undo it."

 

Will paused before speaking again

 

"What happens to Hannibal?"

 

"I don't know the answer to that question."

 

Will lowered his eyes to the floor. Suddenly, the elevator came to a bumpy halt, shaking vertically until it stood still. Will looked above the elevator door where the number two was lit up.

 

_How is the second floor below the first?_

 

Will shifted his attention to the elevator door that made a low creaking noise as it slid open to expose a light, beige door on the other side. Will sat there on the floor, perplexed.

 

"We made it to the second floor" 85 said, facing Will while he glided back to the control panel.

 

Will bounced his eyes from the elevator operator to the beige door.

 

"Why is there a door on the other side?" Will asked.

 

85 stared at him, then, hovered over to peek out the elevator, guts following him like a pet on a leash.

 

"I'm afraid I cannot see this door you speak of, all I see is blackness. As I previously mentioned, I am incapable of seeing anything beyond this elevator. I can hear things but I cannot see them." 85 stated as he returned to his original position. "Anyway, my eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be."

 

85 let out a dreadful, long, twisted chuckle. A machine gun like laugh, only crueler sounding and higher pitched. Will felt his skin creep and the hairs at the back of his neck prickle at the sound of it.

His bodily sensations reminded him of something.

 

"On the first floor, I was being chased by something. It looked like a shadow, but I didn't get a good look at it. It made a clicking sound. Do you know what it is?"

 

"I've heard of it. That entity goes by no proper name. From what I know, it can take on many forms, a shape-shifter of sorts. Stay away from it, it will kill you. The previous people who I serviced who made contact with it never returned back to the elevator."

 

"But how would you know they are dead if you can't see beyond the elevator?" asked Will.

 

"I heard their deafening shrieks. I waited for them to return, they never did."

 

That made Will nervous.

 

"What if I just quit randomly? Left this place?"

 

85 shook his head, hair bouncing side to side.

 

"The only way to leave this place is by using this elevator. Otherwise you are stuck here."

 

Will smirked as he thought of something.

 

"I could easily go over there and press the seven button to take me down there right off the bat."

 

85 cocked his head again.

 

"That would be awfully rude of you, Mr. Graham. And foolish. This elevator is armed with a bomb. Should anything out of the ordinary happen, it will detonate. I have no control over this, so please, do not act impulsively on this elevator."

 

_Shit._

 

"Mr. Graham, treat this elevator as your sanctuary; once you are in it, nothing bad will happen to you. You are safe here."

 

Will looked back at the door. It looked familiar to him. But then again, as a former police officer, he has opened and knocked down his fair share of doors. They all end up blurring together.

He pushed himself up on his feet, and inched closer to it. He stopped on the edge of the elevator door. He turned back to 85, not looking at him in the eyes.

 

"So I just get through this floor, and then what?"

 

"Once you go through it, you will encounter this elevator somewhere on the floor. I will have the door open so that you may enter it quickly. Then, should you decide to continue, we move onto the next floor."

 

Will turned his back to the beige door.

 

"Ok." He muttered.

 

Sweat was already dripping down his face. He wiped it off with the back of his hand.

He reached over to grab the brass door handle; it was cold. He turned it to the right and pushed-

 

"Oh, Mr. Graham!" alerted 85. Spooked, Will shut the door, shuddered and looked back at him, avoiding eye contact once again. The hand holding the doorknob shook.

 

"Good luck." From the corner of his eye, Will saw 85 smiling.

 

Will let out a soft "oh," nodding gingerly at him.

 

_Asshole_

 

He felt his nervousness seeping out of him through body shakes. He took a deep breath and turned his head back to the door. He turned the doorknob once more, pushed the door open and stepped inside.  


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will begins his journey on the third floor, and finds himself in a familiar setting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if I missed any tags.

 

He pushed open the door, his hand slipping off the doorknob as he took his first few steps inside. Stepping away from the entrance, he looked around, inspecting the furniture in the room. A tan three-seat couch by the door that looked like it had seen better days; the fabric littered with stains, the cushion seats looked worn out, almost flat with years of use. In front of it, was a coffee table. The surface was discoloured and appeared heavily scratched, like the wood floor he was standing on. The windows around him had security bars installed.

He appeared to be in a living room.

He noticed the details of the room were triggering something in him; an inkling of familiarity. He looked to his right, which is where the dining room was; a door separated both rooms, just as another door separated the dining room from what Will believed - _knew-_ was the kitchen. That door was closed however, this door was wide open, displaying a dining table set for three. He stared at the set table, specifically at the plates, the colour and style triggering past memories. His eyes started scanning each object within his field of vision, taking in all the visual information in both rooms with great speed. He unconsciously held in his breath, not knowing what he was doing until his body forced him to exhale. He knew where he was. He didn't notice the rapid eye shaking taking place with his eyes at the realization.

Hesitation crept inside him like an unshakable coldness; his chest grew heavy with regret. His heart palpitated fast again, he felt as if his heart was never going to stop. The clock on the living room wall ticked loudly in the dead silence, announcing a message in repetitive, single-clicks like Morse code. Will's footsteps resonated with soft creaks of the moving wood tiles beneath him.

This was a mistake.

He turned around to head back out the door, but instead he found himself staring at the wall. His eye twitched. He was sure the door had been there moments ago. Will looked around him, to make sure nothing had moved on him. The windows were in the same place, the stained couch in the same place, everything but the door remained unmoved. He went over to push on the wall, it felt sturdy; it was as if the door was never there to begin with.

Will's head made a sudden turn as a crisp _thud_ cut through the still air. Another _thud_ followed seconds later. Will had an idea what the sound was; he gulped at the thought of it. The sounds stopped and continued at irregular time intervals. He remembered the back door on the other side of the house. He looked around; there was no way getting there without passing by the kitchen, which is where the sound was coming from. He searched around the room for a weapon, but only came across the plates on the dining table; the cutlery was missing.

Cautiously, he made his way down the hallway, passing the dining room, and slowing down as he neared the kitchen entrance. From memory, he made sure to avoid parts of the floor that creaked. He had the intention of quietly passing by the kitchen, without being seen by whomever was inside it.

The idea would have worked had the person in the kitchen not already know of his presence.

Will was walking lightly as he approached the entrance of the kitchen in the hallway. He didn’t want to look inside but his curiosity told him to, just in case. He looked and saw a woman's figure hunched over the counter, with her back turned to him. Her dark, long hair shook as she lifted and brought down a knife, hitting presumably a cutting board with a _thud._ Her arms struggling a bit, roughly cutting into something before stopping completely. She froze in her position for awhile, as if waiting for Will to make a noise. Will stopped moving, freezing in his spot as well. The woman, well aware of the man behind her, began speaking.  

"You are always a pain the ass. What were you thinking, embarrassing me in front of our neighbours like that with your crying? I can't say anything to you without you over-reacting. Why couldn't you be normal like the rest of the children?"

 

 _That voice._ Will recognized it immediately.

 

"I've had it with your whining, crying at all hours of the night, you never let me sleep. I'm exhausted putting up with your shit." In a brusque movement, the woman flung something in the sink next to her, the object hitting the metal with a _thump_. "You don't know the pain you've caused me. I don't look like myself anymore. You've ruined me."

Will started to shiver involuntarily. It was suddenly getting cold the more she talked, Will could see his breath in the air. The window in the kitchen was clouding up. He needed to leave, run, but he is immobilized, unable to break free of the spell he felt he was under. But it was no spell; she brought out the weak in him.

 

"What a selfish child you've turned out to be, always needing me for something. It's always about you William. Always, you, you, YOU."  

 

Her neck lifted upward, her back straightened, as it made a familiar CLICK sound. Her neck twitched, jerking obscenely as her head turned to Will, making a sound equivalent to the sound of tendons ripping.

 

"WHAT ABOUT ME, WILLIAM? DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR MOTHER? HUH?! AND NO, DINNER ISN'T FUCKING READY. ASK AGAIN AND I'LL FUCKING MAKE YOU EAT FROM THE GARBAGE CAN AGAIN, DO YOU HEAR? ANSWER ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU."

 

She turned her entire body around, menacingly shaking the knife at Will. He noticed her apron is splashed with blood, some of it had managed to reach her chin. As she shook the bloody knife at him, Will saw that her other hand has two digits missing, precisely the pinky and the ring fingers. Both severed below the second knuckle, nubs shining in brilliant red. She had been chopping off her fingers.

 

"Useless like your father, you both belong together."

 

She motions to resume her chopping _(CLICK CLICK)_ when she stops and twists her neck to give him a look _(CRACK CRACK)_.

A look of fury and disgust. Her blue eyes were lifeless, empty. The eyes of a ceramic doll are more lively than hers ever were. Memories of his mother are vague and few, but the feelings of hurt that specific look gave birth to were all too familiar to Will.

 

"How many times have I told you to stop looking at me like that?"

 

She fully turned back around to Will.

 

_CLICK CLICK_

 

"I said stop looking at me like that. Dinner isn't fucking ready. Are you also deaf?"

 

Will is quiet the whole time, he doesn't dare speak. He doesn't know how she- _it_ \- will react if he did. He pushed up against the wall of the hallway. His head remained still as his eyes darted down the hallway. To his left he saw the door to his parents' room slightly ajar.

He looked back at her. He is well aware of the entity before him is not his mother. But he cannot help feel five years old again, when everything felt larger and out of his control.

 

"No one will love you for the freak that you are, you know that?" she chuckles, shaking her head.

 

"I should have given you up while I had the chance. WILLIAM STOP LOOKING AT - THAT'S IT."

She slammed the cleaver down on the counter and marched over to him. Although it was more like she sprinted to him, as if she bent the rules of physics, vanishing and reappearing before him in a flash. She grabbed Will by the head and slammed it against the wall. Three hard smashes to the back of the head. It was so sudden. Will doesn't remember his mother ever being this strong. His vision goes black, and in the moments it took for his vision to come back, she had dragged him into the kitchen by his hair and shirt in one curt pull. Will grimaced at the pain and released a long grunt. He managed to grab the counter with both hands to stabilize himself.

"There you go, whining again" his mother stated annoyingly.

 

Warm blood and decaying meat fills his nostrils, dizzying him more.

As she held his shirt with her left hand, she picked up a severed finger from the chopping block with her right.

"This'll shut you right up." She shoved the finger drenched in blood into his mouth. She doesn't let go of the finger, and intentionally pushes, shoving her hand down his throat. Panicking, Will grabbed her hand, trying to yank it out. His hand goes to her long dark hair, and yanked on it with such great force, that a handful of it tore out, ripping out bits of scalp with it. His mother reacted not in agony, but with laughter, a mocking laughter. He felt both shock and rage accumulate in his hands, as his fingers curled into a fist which flew and landed on the throat. The first punch kept her in a state of shock, the second one produced a more satisfying, choking reaction. She backed off and the force in her arms loosened, which gave Will enough time to pull her hand out of his throat.

He hacked up the finger which landed on the black and white tiled kitchen floor.

 

_Flop_

 

He choked for air as he attempted to regulate his breathing back to normal. In the corner of his eye he sees the knife on the counter. Heaving, he jets towards it, grabbing it with his right hand. Will winds his arm, stretching across his left shoulder and without hesitation, he swung and slit her throat open.

In a furor, her eyes widen and a scream rushed out of her mouth. More blood gushed out of her neck. She hunched over, putting pressure on the wound with her hands. She screamed, gurgling her words as she spoke

 

"YOO PIECE O' SHEE, LOO WAH YOO DE O' MEE!"

 

To Will, the voice transformed into a screech of the same frequency as nails on chalkboard. With the knife in his hand, Will rushed out of the kitchen and headed down the hallway. He was looking for the back door that took him to the backyard. He reached the back end of the house, and instead of a door, he found another wall where the door should have been.

 

_What is this?_

 

His mind started racing, looking for another way out. He was about to go into his old bedroom when he recalled something; the door to the attic was in his parent's bedroom, and if he remembered well, the window there didn't have security bars installed.

He made his way around and into his parent's bedroom. He slammed the door shut. Quickly, he moved two drawers up against the door, straining his back in the process but he doesn't feel it thanks to the adrenaline pumping in his system.

 

"Is she at it again?"

 

Will swung his head around, startled at hearing another voice in the room. In his panic, he hadn't noticed a man sitting on the bed, up against the wall, with a beer can in hand. The bedside table was littered with crushed, empty beer cans, a few had fallen off and landed on the carpet floor. He stared off at the television in front of the bed, which was turned off.

 

"Dad?" Will said in disbelief.

 

"Your mother is a handful, I know." His father turned to him. His demeanor screamed exhaustion, his face lined with age; he wasn't aging well. His green eyes were heavy with sadness. It was a face he had grown up seeing as a child, regardless, it still hurt Will to look at him even after all these years.

 

"Sometimes her emotions get a hold of her. It may not look like it, but she means well." His father took another chug of his beer, returning his attention to the television screen.

 

"...why..." the word came out of Will drenched in anguish. His forehead crinkled with disappointment.

 

Alaringly, a fast clicking sound travelled from behind the door, when suddenly a blade of an ax burst through the door.

 

"I SHOOL HAF GO'N RID OF YOO WHILE I HAD EH CHANCE." She let out a blood-curdling shriek.

 

He walked toward the walk in closet and grabbed a string hanging from the ceiling. He pulled, and a set of wooded stairs unfolded before him. He cut the long string with the knife.

 

Will looked behind him. "Dad. Come. Come with me." Will pleaded, choking on his words.

 

CRUNCH SMASH

 

The axe was eating away at the door.

 

"Give her a chance," his father said numbly, unaffected by what was happening around them. He was still staring at the blank television screen.

 

"Dad, come on." He hurried over to grab his dad's arm, but his dad shook him off.

 

"She loves us, Will. She's having a bad day, that's all. Everything will be alright."

 

Will stared at him. He had heard those words from him before. Yet it was only until now did he feel the weight of them. They had been too heavy to bear as a young boy, so he did what everyone else in such circumstances would do: he buried them.

 

"She's promised to never leave us." His father turned to him, a small smile formed on his face, creating wrinkles in the corners of his mouth. "It'll be fine, Will."

 

Will backed off reluctantly and grabbed the stairs behind him. It was no use. He climbed to the top and pulled himself into the dark attic. Before he pulling the stairs up, he took a quick glance at his dad, who had returned his gaze to the television.

 

Seeing his father in this state again peeled open painful memories, readdressing Will with the reality that the dysfunctional environment he grew up in was normalized from the very beginning. His dad had died many years ago but he remembered, with time, when his mother went against her word and left them both soon after, his drinking got worse. Even while he was still living, his father became more of a memory that Will caressed in his mind.

 

_Bye Dad._

He closed the attic door. Will stood up in the darkness, the large window to his right filled a portion of the attic with dim light. His memory was correct, the window didn't have any security bars. He went to it and looked out. The night sky was moonless and starless once again, like on the first floor. However, the light that radiated from outside was coming from across the front yard. There beyond the house was the elevator, brightly lit in the darkness, with its door open. He looked out the window onto the first storey flat roof that connected to the attic, mentally calculating the distance to the ground.

_I could walk on it and climb down using the eaves trough._

 

"Williaaam..." it taunted, softly.

 

Will glanced at the attic door. He heard furniture moving below him: she had gotten into the room.

He desperately looked around him and found a steel baseball bat, leaning against a tower of cardboard boxes. He carefully put the knife in his back pocket, blade first. He took the bat and closed his eyes before he proceeded to smash the window. He cleaned the edges of the window as much as possible, chards of glass trickling down on his shoes. The noise below him grew louder, transforming into a humming growl.

Will stepped over the window ledge onto the roof, making his way toward the end. The air was wet and heavy; it felt like home. He walked as close to the edge as he could. Looking down, the ground looked farther down than before. Mind tricks or not, it looked as if the house was growing taller. He felt light-headed once more. He was quick to regain his balance after almost losing it when he leaned forward. He blinked hard, it looked so far down.

It was quiet outside. What broke Will out of his trance was the heavy breathing coming from behind him. Fearfully, he turned around and saw the silhouette of his mother. The light from the elevator shone on portions of her body; the blood on her clothes looked black in the dim light. What was clearly visible were her eyes that glowed, an intense blue that pierced through the darkness of the attic, staring, demonically, right at him. She lifted the ax calmly with her right hand.

A sinister smile appeared on her face as she twisted the axe in her left hand side to side, the light reflecting off the blade. Will noticed something about the hand. Was she showing off the axe or her hand? She licked her canine.

 

"Hi sweetheart" she said, clearly. No gurgling this time.

 

_She's healed._

 

"Not only do you behave like your father, you look like him, too. Be a good boy and let me fix that face up for you."

 

Out of instinct, Will took a step back. It was a step too many, forgetting he was right at the edge of the roof. He fell, landing in a bush that partially cushioned his fall. He closed his eyes as he felt the impact of the fall sting and hit every nerve in his back

 

"AAHRG"

 

The baseball bat flew out of his hands, rolling on the grass near him. In between gasps, he blinked his eyes open to see the figure jumping from the roof, falling in an attack stance like in slow motion. Both hands on the handle of the ax, ready to strike him upon landing.  

Without hesitation, Will rolled over as fast as  he could, feeling the blades of grass tickle his face as she landed on the bush, swinging where Will had been seconds before.

He quickly pushed himself up as he picked up the bat in one swift movement. He turned to face his mother, when he abruptly ducked, just barely missing the edge of the ax blade. Instead of flight, Will succumbed to his survival instinct and chose to fight. His fingers wrapped around the handle of the baseball bat and he swung, striking her on the side of the face.

 

_CRACK_

 

The impact caused her to huddle over, and in that time, Will took advantage to strike her incessantly.

 

_CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK_

 

He stopped when he saw her on the ground, lying still. Panting, he dropped his arms to his side. He looked down at the ax that had escaped the grasp of her fingers. Will gave himself a moment before he slowly bent over to pick it up, keeping his eyes on the body out of fear that it would move again. But, it didn't. Once he had the ax in his hands, he threw away the baseball bat, and headed out into the field toward the elevator. He was a good 20 metres away from it when he hears

_CLICK.........CLICK........._

He looked back to see it standing up, jerking its body parts back into position.  

 

_It can't be killed._

 

Will began running, with the ax still in his hands. And without fail, he heard the clicking increase in speed and volume. He upped his speed, getting closer to the elevator with every second. His chest and legs were burning as lactic acid accumulated in his muscles.

 

"85, close the door!" Will screamed, as he reached the elevator.

 

He hit the wall of the elevator and looked back to see a face, or what could be loosely defined as one. Bloodied, and swollen, the face looked like it was transforming, being stretched at different angles like it was clay. Still running, it smirked at him, blood seeping out of its mouth and down the chin and neck. Will moved away from the door, tilting his head back, and squinting his eyes closed out of fear. The door shuts, and immediately he hears it emit a bellow of rage. It banged against the door, like it was using its body to knock down the elevator door.

Will's body twitched at each bang, his hands gripping onto the handle tightly.

 

"Welcome back" congratulated 85.


	4. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been busy lately and haven't had much time to focus on writing sadly.

Will felt his lips purse and twist into a lop-sided smile at the praise. The shadowy figure continued its raging efforts on the other side of the door, but the door seemed invincible, displaying no signs of damage. Regardless, Will had not intentions of sticking around to test its durability.

 

"Onwards then?" asked 85, his bloody stump hovering near the number 3 button, eyebrows raised thanks to the hooks pulling the skin. Will bobbed his head down once in response. The rest of his body quivered uncontrollably until he heard the elevator starting up. As the elevator moved, the intensity of the banging noise softened into echoes, and in their descent, the echoes dissolved into the air.  The downward inertia made his body feel lighter which helped relax his muscles. With the ax still in hand, he slid down onto the floor; the adrenaline had worn off and Will finally felt the explosion of pain pierce in his back and legs from the fall he had taken on the second floor. He felt something prick his right butt cheek as he sat down. He pulled out the knife out of the back pocket and placed it on the floor beside him.

 

"How was it?" 85's head tilted, the skin around his mouth pulled into a smile.

 

Will began to feel a heat grow inside him, his forehead twitched, they were effects of his defense mechanism in reaction to 85's question. His initial reaction subsidized after a moment when Will sensed no viciousness behind the question. Mere curiosity fed 85's appetite for an answer.

 

"How do people usually respond to that question in situations such as these?"

 

There was a pause before 85 responded.

 

"They respond very little verbally but their eyes," 85 zoomed forward "they hide nothing; they do all the talking." 

 

"Hmm" was all Will could muster out. The decaying eyes were overstimulating him, his mind began racing.

 

_What can he see in mine?_

 

"That doesn't matter I guess. Whatever it is that you saw out there, it's gone for now" 85 glided back to the control panel.

 

"You're referring to that figure that tries to kill me?"

 

"Yes" his head tilted - _Flop - "_ well yes and no. You may see it again, but I meant the world you entered. That world is gone and another one will appear the next time."

 

85's head nodded up and down, as if inspecting Will's physical state.

 

"You don't look too beat up. That's good."

 

Will looked at himself. Besides a couple of scratches and bruises spotting his exposed skin, he seemed fine. Winded, but fine. When he garnered energy back into his legs, he slowly got up on his feet, using the elevator handle for support. His back still ached however.

He kept his eyes down on his hand, his thumb gliding across the cold, metallic surface of the handle as 85's statement jogged a memory.

 

  _He mentioned each floor would get harder, didn't he?_

 

Will looked at the control panel, his eyes veered to the number 3 glowing in yellow.

 

_5 more floors_

He could hear 85's voice echoing in his head

 

_~"No one has made it past the 5th floor"~_

 

His whole body broke out in a cold sweat at the thought. He released a soft sigh. For once, Will wished he was dreaming.

 

"Are you regretting your decision?" asked the elevator operator, noticing a swift change in his visitor's body language. Blink and you wouldn’t have seen it, but luckily for 85, the somatic nervous system reflex wasn't necessary with his eyelids peeled up to his orbital bone.

Will knew the answer to that question. But it made Will uneasy to think the next floor, and the others to follow, would test his devotion for Hannibal in every aspect possible.

 

"I understand that you seem like the type to keep to yourself. I admire that in you. But I must tell you that it would benefit you to open up to me, so I may help you as much as possible to increase your chances of survival."

Will looked up at 85, specifically at his chin, and in a low voice, he responded

 

"I'm thinking how things can get worse from here on out."

 

"Ah," 85 noted with comprehension, "you're wondering what the other floors have in store for you."

 

A nod.

 

"Hmm. As I previously mentioned, I cannot foresee nor witness first-hand what you will experience on each floor. The best advice I can give you, Mr. Graham, is to look to your past. These floors will test you in ways that your past has already done so."

 

Will furrowed his brows.

 

"They say the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour."

 

Will breathed a quiet laugh. "That is a gross simplification 85. There are conditions that must be present for that statement to be considered true."

 

"Correct. One of which is the person of interest must remain essentially unchanged. Have you not undergone some change or personal growth, Mr. Graham?"

 

Will thought back to the seconds before the fall, recalling the throbbing admiration Hannibal's eyes held for him, at the being his transformation had given birth to. Will closed his eyes as he remembered the way they had both embraced each other by the edge, the connection and touch they finally received after having ached for it all their lives. The memory made his body shiver with longing.

 

"I have."

 

"Then, your past isn't a predictor of your future; you will react differently to the same experiences of the past. That change you say you have gone through will offer you with a new perspective to tackle old problems and experiences in a new way. I wonder if this same change helped you complete the 2nd floor."

 

His mother's face popped in his head at hearing this.

 

"No,"Will shook his head as if to shake the image away. "I froze like I was a child again."

 

"You wouldn't be on this elevator with me if that were so. Freezing is simply a self-protecting response hard wired in every being for survival purposes. It is not an indicator of your character. Reactions are composed of emotional, cognitive, and behavioural components. Maybe you reacted to whatever you're referring to the same emotionally but did you react the same behaviourally and cognitively?"

 

Will's mind went back to his encounter with his father on the 2nd floor. He knew the person whom he saw wasn't his father but he reacted as if it was.

 

 

~ _"Dad. Come. Come with me."~_

 

 

"You worked with the FBI didn't you? They sought you to profile killers because they trusted your intuition on cases. Personally, I don't think you trust yourself with yourself. You are not used to trusting your own instincts out of fear of discovering, and potentially enjoying, something contrary to social norms."

 

Will knew this to be true.

Both beings remained quiet, allowing the sounds of the elevator cables to fill the silence between them. The humming noise was interrupted by a ding as the elevator reached the floor. The door slid open to reveal greenery and brightness, sunshine radiated from outside and a ray stretched into the elevator and touched Will's legs.

Beyond the elevator, a few meters away, stood an iron gate and a wall of stones that fenced in an army of tall trees.

Will inhaled deeply as if bracing himself for the unknown. Without looking, he grabbed the ax, leaving the knife behind.

85's head followed Will as he stepped out of the elevator. His hands gripped the ax as he looked around him cautiously, assessing the environment with a fine-tooth comb. He saw birds flying around in the blue sky, some were perched on tree branches. The grass was tall, the tapered ends reached his hip. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, in this out of the ordinary situation he found himself.

He headed toward the gate as he heard 85's yell after him. He stopped to look behind him, seeing the elevator door close slowly.

 

"Personally, I think you're too hard on yourself, Mr. Graham. Give yourself credit where credit is due. You're here for a reason, finding that reason will be your philosopher's stone."

 

Will turned back around. If only he knew why he was here.

He left a path of compressed blades of grass as he trampled on more to make his way toward the iron gate. Upon reaching it, Will took note of the dimensions of the gate. The erect structure was about 2 metres wide and tall, with double doors. He pushed open one door and it announced his presence with a loud creak. Will looked around as if expecting the noise to stir something. He listened tentatively but only caught the gentle whistling of the wind welcoming him inside.

He walked through the gate and followed the worn out path for what felt like a couple of minutes. His head made quick manoeuvres as he scanned for potential danger, but Will felt his heightened state of arousal regulate the more he walked. His focus shifted from protection to curiosity for enough time to where his energy absorbed the workings of nature in the forest. The tall grass around him blew in the gentle wind; they flattened in waves with each gust and sprung back up afterwards like springs. The blades of grass varied in hues, but all were a healthy shade of green, reveling under the sunlight. The trees were just as healthy with dark, green foliage. A handful of squirrels scurried across the ground, and spiraled their way up tree trunks.

His observation and admiration of the scenery made him turn his head far back enough to where he was looking back at the path behind him when he noticed the gate, along with the elevator had disappeared from his field of view. The land he was walking on was flat and regardless if the world he was in was distorting with his sense of time or not, both items should have been observable from where he was standing. Yet beyond the horizon was nothing but trees and bushes, parted by the path that extended as far back to where the horizon reached; he couldn't even see where the path started.

He continued walking. The trees surrounding him were large and generously spaced apart, which allowed the sun's rays to reach him from straight above. The heat from the sun felt nice on his skin, warming his chilled hands and forearms, cold thanks to the nerves left over from the beginning of his hike. The warmth spread throughout his body and overtime he felt some of his muscles ease up a bit. Just a bit, he didn't want to drop his guard; although this felt like a normal summer day, he was reminded -

 

_what happened to the elevator and the iron gate?_

 

 _-_  that this place was anything but normal. Will came to a stop as he came to the end of the path, making him wonder where to go next. The forest looked big, and for a split second his worry brought doubts regarding his success in finding the elevator. He decided to keep heading straight, walking over large fallen branches and stepping on twigs and pieces of bark that littered the ground before him.

Time had passed, and although the specifics were unknown to him, Will felt it.

Step by step, and over time he found himself holding onto the trunk of trees more often than before. He noticed his trek was no longer easy; the terrain had changed as he struggled to keep his balance on the uneven ground that became slippery from the moss that grew in abundance. Grass was sparse in the area he was in. His eyes were now fixed to the ground to assure proper footing. Will began to feel the impact of the additional effort in his hike; initially his body had sweat out of anxiety, now it perspired for a different reason. He felt his posture change; his back was heavy with exhaustion. Every time he inhaled his throat ached, reminding him of his need for hydration. He thought about looking for a running river, but feared that it would be a trap, something might be waiting for him, knowing that he would have to quench his thirst at one point or another. But he couldn't go on like this, eventually he would drop from exhaustion or dehydration. Who knows how long it would take him to find the elevator, he might be here for days looking for it ... or he may never find it. And, he would have to eat sooner or later. He had the ax still, but -

Will found a stable footing and stopped. He looked around and listened.

 

And listened.

 

_When was the last the time I saw wildlife?_

 

His eyes searched for movement and his ears, like satellites, detected for sounds. Apart from the jagged terrain, his inspection of the area provided more information of changes in the landscape. Drastic changes. The trees were thinner, and too tightly packed for the wind to pass through, which is why...

 

_It's so quiet._

 

He looked up and all he saw was thick foliage blocking the sunlight from entering. The lack of light darkened the space, this probably was the change he had initially felt. Besides the crowded trees, the place was empty, no squirrels, no birds, no breeze.

His back muscles contracted abruptly as if he had suddenly sensed a large insect crawling up along it, stimulating many small nerves one pointy leg at a time. He twisted his arm behind him to touch his back to console it.

He of all people appreciated quietness, but this was more like an absence of sound, and to Will, it felt unsafe. It felt as if he walked into an ambush that was moments away from occurring. He turned around and headed back to where he had came from. He moved fast, careful but fast. He wanted to escape. One foot in front of the other he picked up his pace, occasionally looking back to make sure no one was following him. He hoped he could make it back to the sunnier place he was before.

 

_I probably took a wrong turn somewhere when I wasn't paying attention_

 

One minute turned to minutes, which turned to what felt like an hour. Hope was fading fast. He stopped to take a moment of rest, breathing fast and deep as he tilted his head down a bit. Either he was lost or this place was preventing him from finding his way back, because everywhere looked the same. Will knew he had a keen sense of direction, so getting lost was something that never happened. Eventually, his breathing slowed down but even his soft breath, in this soundless place, sounded like a bellow. He couldn't help absorb a feeling of isolation created from the stillness. It penetrated him familiarly, hitting him in the same way it had done before for the first time when he was younger.

 

_An old friend_

 

Something caught his attention to his far left. Will closed his eyes and opened them; the object was still there. He knew better than to walk to it, but he felt like it was beckoning him. Before he knew it, his legs were staggering across the slippery rocks embedded in the earth.

A soft humming filled the air. And as it filled the air, the sound got louder as he closed the distance between himself and the object. It was at a sound level where the humming unfolded into mumbled words, not slow nor clear enough to identify each word. The object, a blue triangle that refocused in Will's eyes into a blue tent, moved ever so slightly. Will was sufficiently close to it to witness the fabric of the tent waver as if someone was inside it. In that split second, freeze took over Will's legs and his foot missed his stepping. He was able to catch his fall with both hands, but in doing so he dropped the ax, which hit a large stone.

If Will's soft breathing sounded like a bellow, the metal blade of the ax hitting the stone created a disturbance in the atmosphere, a shock wave that split the stillness like an earthquake.

His eyes hopped back and forth from the tent to his feet as he pushed himself back up, with the ax back in his hands. It took him a moment to regain his balance and for the stillness to return. When it did return, it was more eerie than before. Will lifted the ax in an attack stance when he came to the realization that the mumbling had stopped. And the tent was being unzipped.


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will realized that the tent he found in the forest was not empty.
> 
>  
> 
> Long chapter is long, oops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lovely readers,
> 
> Please look at the new tags I have added that correspond to this chapter (suicide, implied/referenced suicide, self harm, suicidal thoughts).

The sound of the unzipping was lost to the pulse that thundered in Will’s ears. He hadn't noticed his arms elevating higher into the air. Momentarily, he drifted away; his vision went out of focus and he couldn’t feel the ground beneath him. The zipper hit the top of the tent and all movement stopped, save the metal tab that jingled quietly.

His breathing hitched when a carton of juice flew out of the tent, sprinkling leftover liquid onto the ground. The box bounced and landed by Will's left foot. False threat. His limbs shook from the adrenaline pumping in his veins. He heard the mumbling again, this time it was louder.

A hand slithered out of the opening, and a hunched body jetted out of the tent. Will caught a glimpse of the person’s profile.

The person, a young adolescent, walked around the tent. He had a slim build, dressed in a black sweater and dark blue jeans. He either seemed unbothered by Will's presence or was unaware of him, as his head peered downward at a pile of belongings as if searching for something. Will observed him while his mind raced.

 

_It could be that thing in disguise again._

 

And it could be, rightfully so. Why wouldn't it be?

But something in his mind told him to speak. Dread consumed him when he heard the word "hi" stumble out of his mouth.

His mumbling stopped as he faced him; he was moved by the boy’s youthfulness. His blue eyes contrasted strikingly against his dark hair, and his delicate features added to his boyish looks. Will knew something about the latter. Although he had never been fond of mirrors, he knew thanks to hormones, his face had changed somewhat since adolescence. But even with facial hair, and a stronger jaw line, Will knew he still had a boyish face. To this day, people were adamantly clear in reminding him that he didn't look his age. Certain people he had met in his life made it _intimately_ clear. Will's eyes quivered as his mind searched its way back to the present. He blinked repeatedly to refocus.

The boy looked unfazed by the man before him, who held an ax high above his head as if ready to take a swing at him. His eyes locked onto Will's for a few seconds, before he lowered his head to resume his search, his mumbling followed.

From what he saw in the boy’s eyes, Will felt sure he wasn’t a threat. But he had seen something else in them; his sunken eyes were stained with a sorrow so intense, it made Will lower his ax and catch his breath. He felt a quiet desire to comfort him.

The boy emptied the contents of a backpack as he flipped it upside down. A bunch of items hit the ground: bottles, a paper map, a ball of string, juice boxes, some snacks, and clothing items. He threw the empty backpack to the side and bent over to pick up a flashlight. He turned it on and off as if testing the batteries. Seemingly satisfied, the boy headed back into the tent, ruffling some things inside.

Will's attention went to the dump of belongings the boy had rummaged through, specifically at the many unused, plastic water bottles. He began salivating with the little body fluid he had left in his system. He licked his dry lips; they stung as the tongue came into contact with the raw cuts.

He looked back to the tent, the boy was busy doing who knows what inside, mumbling to himself.

 

_He wouldn't miss a bottle, would he?_

 

Before he knew it, Will had quietly made his way to the pile and was devouring water from a bottle. He muffled the desire to gasp an "aaah" after finishing. He looked at the other water bottles lying on the ground; he wanted more.

He was finishing his second bottle when the boy crouched out of the tent, equipped with thick rope coiled vertically on his shoulder, the flashlight, and a jacket. He was zipping up his jacket, still paying Will no mind. He kneeled down to retie his shoe laces, finishing the knot with a tight pull. He got back up, went behind the tent and walked off.

 

This boy was the only living being he had come across for a long time. He didn't know him, yet he felt the need to follow him. A deep part of him didn't want to continue being alone in this neck of the woods, plus-

Will looked up.

It was going to get dark soon. The tent could be useful too, even if he had to share it with this stranger. He didn't know how comfortable he would be doing that, but the thought of sleeping alone out here was more unnerving.

 

The idea of this kid knowing a way out floated in his head.

 

_It could be a trap._

 

He didn't want to risk following him.

 

_But I don’t want to hang around here alone._

 

He wrestled with the decision in his head.

He looked back and remembered the big ball of string in the pile of belongings. Will picked it up and went to a tree by the tent and tied a knot around it. He picked up a stick and slid it through the hole of the ball, and held the components upright as he quietly followed the boy, the string unravelling as he moved. He consciously made sure to keep as much distance as he could, which was easily done thanks to the slippery terrain.  

 

On their walk, the boy, on occasions, would stop abruptly mid track. Initially it threw Will off balance. He imagined he did it to see if he was still being followed. But it looked like he was taking a moment to look around, as if recalling where to go, incessantly mumbling while at it. It gave Will a sliver of hope that an exit of some sorts was in reach. Desperation had kicked in and he wished it would be found soon. The landscape, to some extent, remained the same, but the aura had changed and Will felt it. The further they walked, the more profound the sense of loneliness penetrated in his bones. It clung onto him like humidity, embracing him uncomfortably like it belonged to him. He could even taste it in the air; it was metallic on his tongue. Much like humidity, Will was finding it harder to breathe, and it worried him. He looked at the ball of string. There was plenty of it left, but he didn’t know where the boy was going, nor how far away this place was. He feared he would run out. Even with his keen sense of direction, would he be able to find his way back to the tent, in this place that didn’t want him finding his way back home?

 

_How far are you willing to go, Will?_

 

Will looked up. He noticed the brightness of whatever sunlight seeping through the thick foliage of the trees was getting dimmer. The trees around them were more tightly packed, some of their roots protruded from the ground, making him almost trip a couple of times. In all of this, the boy did not once turn around to look at him, nor did the mumbling stop. The latter was like white noise to Will’s ears and it soothed him. It was much better than the deafening silence.

 

What was the boy doing here, all by himself? And why didn't he bring all of his belonging with him? The idea of him hunting for food crossed Will's mind, but with the items the boy had retrieved, plus the lack of wildlife, there wasn't much to hunt. Nor did he grab his backpack to go berry collecting, not that there was much of the edible kind available. The handful of small bushes they were passing by harvested yellow berries, which Will knew to be poisonous. So where was he heading? Did he know of an exit? Was he also looking for the elevator? Did he even know of the elevator?

 

This time, when the boy stopped again, his mumbling also ceased. Will noticed, and stopped dead in his tracks. Both bodies stood pin still, as if one was waiting for the other to break the silence. Will began to tense up.

 

"Is there a reason you're following me?" asked the boy, in an annoyed but sad tone. His back was still to Will.

 

Will thought before answering

 

"I'm lost, and I don't know exactly where I am."

 

Pause of silence.

 

Will added "You looked like you knew where you were going, I figured I would follow you. Perhaps you were looking for your way back home like I am."

 

At that moment the boy turned around at just an angle to make eye contact with Will. The sadness was still there.

 

"I'm not looking for my way back home" he answered, monotonously.

 

The boy continued walking, turning his head back.

 

"Where are you going then?"

 

"Somewhere else."

 

"Where is this somewhere else?"

 

Silence.

Will hesitated to ask the next question, knowing how it would make him sound.

 

"Um. This may come across as unusual, but you haven't seen an elevator around in these parts of the woods have you?"

 

The boy turned his head back for a second while he kept walking, displaying a blatant look of puzzlement.

 

"You really are lost, huh?"

 

He took that as a no.

 

"Can I join you, where ever you're headed to?"

 

The boy hesitated before answering.

 

"I prefer my walks to be quiet, just so you know" the boy shrugged.

 

Will couldn’t help but smirk.

*******************************

With the mumbling gone, they walked in silence, which became more overwhelming. He didn't know if it was the lack of sound or his curiosity that made him resume the conversation.

 

"What's your name?"

 

Silence.

 

"I'm Will."

 

More silence.

Will decided to keep quiet to conserve his energy. The air still felt heavy and lacking of oxygen, like they were on a higher altitude.

His ears perked at the hint of sound. He thought he heard the boy start his mumbling again, but something sounded off to him. The noise was more irregular, and higher in pitch. His eyes shifted to the left, where he heard the noise coming from. The more he listened the more he distinguished the sounds to be sobbing. Delicate sobbing. He looked to the boy, who he had caught up to, walking almost right behind him.

 

"Do you hear that?"

 

No answer.

The sobbing got louder.

 

_There's no way he can't hear that._

 

His eyes skipped around frantically in search of what was causing the sobbing, when they landed on a figure, sitting by a tree up ahead. As they got closer, the figure turned out to be a woman. Her brown hair hung down the sides of her head and from what he could tell, her eyes were closed. Judging by her appearance, it looked like she in distress. The jeans and green shirt she wore were soiled with dirt. She was shoeless, and her socks were a deep shade of brown and green from presumably all the walking she had done.

Will maintained his distance from her, but his need for answers made him speak up.

 

"Hello? Do you need help?" he asked.

 

The lady kept crying, she raised her left hand up to her face. Will hesitated, biting his bottom lip. He stepped closer to her.

 

"Miss, are you alright?" Her sobbing continued uninterrupted. She looked ghastly pale; her face was blemished with spots of dirt and moss. If he had to guess, he would assume she was in her mid thirties. He wanted to get closer but thought against it. Just then she got up. Even using the tree trunk as leverage, her feet kept slipping on rocks. She opened her eyes once to look at her feet, and when she did, more tears spilled down her face. She turned her back to Will and walked away, still sobbing to herself.

Will just stood there, confused.

 

"Hey, did you see-"

 

He looked back and realized that the boy had walked on without him. A bolt of anxiety splintered in his gut. Although he could see him, he didn't want to lose him. He took a final glance back at the lady who fumbled her way in the other direction, her arms wrapped around her waist.

 

_What was that all about?_

 

He quickly made ground and caught up to him. He struggled to calm his breathing

 

"Didn't you see… that woman crying over there?" 

 

The boy kept his head down "what?"

 

"The lady, over there. She was sitting by the tree. We passed her."

 

The boy didn’t answer.

 

"I.." Will shut his mouth. He didn't know if this kid was playing games with him, but clearly something was off. He decided to keep quiet. He looked at his hand and noticed that the ball of string had lost more weight.

Again they walked in silence, and this time Will provided more space between them. For the most part, his eyes looked straight ahead, but they would often swerve to his right at the boy. He was wary of him. He seemed lost in his own world, preoccupied with whatever thoughts consumed his adolescent mind. Well, Will assumed he was an adolescent. For all he knew he could be older. His head was always bowed down, his back hunched forward. He had the posture and vibe of a person who had lived a lifetime of exhausting experiences. He studied him with a sad curiosity. His thoughts were interrupted by a loud voice.

 

“I imagine beholding your brilliance, your undying love for me radiating from the skies above, illuminating every inch of my carnal being!”

 

Will stopped momentarily and saw an older, naked man looking up at the sky to his right. He had his arms extended out, his body arched back. Will’s eyes skimmed down the man’s body and he noticed bruises of various colours and sizes on his body. His stomach stuck out as he arched his back more.

 

_Don’t lose him._

 

Will continued walking, more slowly this time as his attention remained captivated by the man.

 

“My skin is yours! My heart” the man banged his chest loudly with one hand “is yours! I offered you every fiber of my being, my love, my devotion, but you didn’t want it.”  The man’s voice quivered at the last part.

 

“Instead you gave me hurt. You fed me lies and contaminated me with pain and self-hatred!”

 

He heard the man’s breathing accelerate, his voice was breaking with tears “You were supposed to protect me, I was your son! You didn’t want me. You never did. So I’ll offer myself to another.”

 

Will’s heart sank when he saw what was in the man’s other hand.

The man swung his right arm to his left side, and with a machete, he slit his throat.

Will’s head jerked back at the arterial spray that squirted from the initial contact, with a copious flow of blood gushing out the neck seconds later. It cascaded down his chest staining his skin violent red.

The man dropped the machete as both hands grabbed his neck, attempting to stop the bleeding. He fell to his knees, and then the rest of his body tumbled onto the ground. There was a nauseating gurgling coming from his mouth; the man was choking on his own blood. He went into shock as his whole body twitched for a few seconds until it lied still. The bloody grip around his neck relaxed and the hands unfurled on the ground.

Will turned his head quickly to make sure the boy was still around. He was nearby, still walking with his head down. Will turned his head back, staring at the man lying dead on the ground in a pool of blood. Something else caught his attention. Near him was a woman lying on her back next to a berry bush. What he noticed first was her mouth stained yellow and a group of loose berries bunched in a circle beside her. He watched as she grabbed a handful of berries without looking and stuffed them in her mouth. She chewed lazily as a large smile formed on her face. She began giggling to herself as she seized another handful. Yellow liquid and spit foamed at the corners of her swollen mouth.

_Christ_

He was beginning to think he was going insane, and he needed some confirmation that he wasn’t. He hurried and walked alongside the boy. Nothing felt right, he didn’t feel right. His shoe bumped against something on the ground. He looked down and saw it was an arm. A severed arm. His eyebrows twitched into a frown, his mouth curled up in distaste.

 

“Kid, where are you taking us? What is this?” Will looked back up and the lines of his frown filled with sudden fright.

 

The trees.

Hanging lowly on several branches were bodies, rope wrapped tightly around each neck. There were so many of them, and from what he could tell, all of them were at different stages of decomposition. A soft voice in his head spoke to him.

 

_Don’t they look like flesh baubles on Christmas trees?_

 

Will slowly shook his head in disbelief.

 

“How are you not seeing this?”

 

The boy had strangely stopped walking.

He looked at Will, who had his arm stretched out in a pointing gesture.

 

“Why are you pointing?” he readjusted the rope on his shoulder. Will looked at the rope and his eyes gleamed with a realization.

 

“Why did you bring that rope?”

 

“In case I need it.”

 

“For what?”

 

The boy shrugged “You never know.”

 

Will hesitated for a moment.

 

“What are planning on doing?” Will asked.

 

“Stop pointing at them” the boy hissed through his teeth. “Haven’t you noticed shit has been getting weirder since we left the campground? Drop your arm.”

 

Will obliged and returned his arm to his side.

 

“So the people back there, the crying lady, you saw them.”

 

The boy peered at Will.

 

“Yes, quit talking about them. The more attention you pay them, the weirder things get around here. I don’t want them getting violent again.”

 

“Violent? Things have been looking violent.”

 

The boy looked side to side, as if looking out for something. Will turned to where he was looking out of curiosity. He then leaned toward Will as if confiding a secret in him. Will noticed the dark bags under his eyes, and the whites of his eyes were a faint shade of red.

 

“There was this one time when I got distracted by this one guy, who was crawling on all fours, with his ears to the ground. Every so often he would move, put his ear on a large rock and knock on it a few times as if they were fucking watermelons and he was testing their ripeness. He would switch ears on each rock, and then he would move onto the next rock and do the same thing. Weird right?” The boy chuckled. “Well, I lost track of time, and didn’t realized that I had spent who knows how much time staring at this guy. The other weird thing is that I felt like staring at him had drained me of energy, and I felt so down. For a split I actually thought of joining him. The idea of losing myself felt good, but the desire left as soon as it came. Anyway, it had gotten a bit dark so I turned on my flashlight and headed back to the tent-”

 

The kid looked around, abruptly pausing.

 

“Let’s walk.” Will followed along and both started walking, the boy appeared nervous as if telling the story had upset him. This was the most animated he had seen him.

 

“You headed back to the tent?”

 

The boy nodded, he spoke quietly “The guy was still doing his thing when I turned around to head back to my tent. Each time I looked back, I kept noticing that he was still behind me, listening to rocks and crawling around like a dog. As if he was following me. At this point I was walking faster, and yet each time I looked back, there he was still behind me. The last time I looked back, the guy was on his feet, and he had a rock in his hand. Then out of nowhere he came at me. I started to run but I slipped and landed on my back. I shone the flashlight on him and I saw the rock flying at me. I rolled over and dodged it but then he jumped on me and started punching me. Luckily, I had this on me.” He took out a hunting knife out of his pocket and showed it to Will.

 

“You killed him” Will stated.

 

The boy looked at the knife anxiously before returning it in his jean pocket.

 

“Not quite. When I stuck it in his throat, he vanished into thin air. Gone. Like a ghost. So the next day, I decided to ignore the people around me and nothing like that has happened since.”

 

“Is that why you pretended to not see those people we passed by?”

 

The boy nodded. “You can’t help them. I tried that before. There’s a girl around my age somewhere here, who I tried to console but she ignored me like I didn’t exist. She kept walking in circles, swinging a kitchen knife around. Her arms were covered with deep cuts. I felt bad watching and not being able to do anything.”

 

Will realized why the boy had his head down all this time. He also realized something else

 

“You’ve been here for a while then?”

 

The boy took a quick glance at him before whispering “yeah.”

 

Will nodded “You’re lost as well. I can’t imagine someone who would choose to stay here. Unless you enjoy being ignored.”

 

The boy smiled for a quick second, which made Will smile. “Stay here long enough and you see familiar faces. It’s like a morbid groundhog day; the same people you saw the day before are killing themselves the next day, and the next day and so forth. I saw the guy who slit his throat back there many times before. Same with the berry-eating girl. Others as well.”

 

Will scrunched his face “How long have you been here?”

 

“To be honest, I don’t remember.” The boy scratched his head “I kind of don’t want to talk about it.”

 

Will purposefully provided silence before speaking again “My teen years weren’t much to brag about, either. My life then wasn’t a bed of rose;  it was like a bad dream. I couldn’t awake from the nightmare; it sucked me in and pulled me under. And I felt like I was stuck living in it my whole life, until-”

_~”It’s beautiful.”~_

Will cocked his head gently “things changed for the better.”

 

“It does feel like a nightmare."

 

Will looked at him empathetically, “But you mentioned you’re not looking to go back home. Where do you want to go?”

 

“Anywhere but here” the boy answered. “There’s a part of the forest I haven’t explored yet, and it starts here. Anyway, where are you from? I take it you’re not from around here.”

 

“No” Will chuckled “I’m not from these neck of the woods.”

 

“What neck of the woods are you from then? Where do you call home?”

 

Will’s eyebrows twitched at hearing the word ‘home.’ He wanted to think of his house in Wolftrap, the small house he had snuggled himself in and the dogs. His mind also wanted to think of the cabin house Molly and he had built in the countryside. Molly’s son and the strays they adopted. But none of that felt like home. Hannibal came to mind, and his heart fluttered. Hannibal felt like home.

 

“I don’t have a home at the moment.”

 

"Hmm" 

 

The boy looked at Will’s hands and huffed a laugh.

 

“I can’t tell if you’re planning on going back to steal my tent or if you’re going to kill me behind my back. Or more ironically, kill me in my sleep. It looks like you’ve had practice” he pointed at the objects in his hands with his chin, and then at Will's bloodied shirt.

 

Will grinned.

 

“The ax is just for m my own safety, and you don’t seem quite strong to take me on. However, you do have a knife, so I may have to keep my eye on you have, maybe you’ll stab _me_ behind _my_ back.”

 

The boy shook his head and smiled.

 

“I didn’t know whether you were coming back or if you knew how to get back so I brought the string.”

 

“I’m good at finding my way back. The only problem is that I don’t want to go back to the tent; I want out of here. I’ll lose it if I stay here any longer.” The boy gripped the rope tightly. Will noticed it.

 

_He’s thought about it before._

 

They both walked, ignoring the noise and morbid visuals around them. The terrain became easier to walk on Will noticed; the composition became less rocky and softer with more soil in the ground.

 

“It’s kind of nice to talk to someone, I was getting tired of mumbling to myself to drown out the noises. When I first saw you I thought you were one of them, which is why I ignored you for awhile. I got nervous when you started following me though.”

 

Both of them smiled in unison.

 

“Sorry about that.”

 

The boy shrugged. He looked up and stopped. Will stopped with him. Their eyes fell on the view of a river, where a long, wooden bridge stood over it. A single file of people lined the length of the bridge and the perimeter of the river bank. Their heads were turned to them, staring quietly.

 

“Have you ever seen them behave like this before?” asked Will while his eyes remained on the single file of people.

 

The boy shook his head in disagreement. Will didn’t see the head shake, but he could guess the answer.

 

“They’re looking at us, like they see us.”

 

“Do you recognize any of them?”

 

“No. But,” the boy’s eyes travelled past the bridge “it looks nice on the other side.”

 

Will noticed that the bridge led to a sunlit, grassy field, much like the place where the elevator had dropped him off. Actually, Will could swear that it was the exact same place. He saw a dark line far in the distance connecting with the tree line.

 

“There are no boats on hop onto, so we’re going to have to cross.”

 

Will couldn’t feel it, but the boy tensed at the thought of crossing a bridge with all those people in close proximity to him.

 

“I don’t know. I mean we swim across?”

 

Will looked at the row of people blocking access to the river from the bank.

 

“If we can get around them. But I don’t trust that they won’t do something to us while we’re in the river.”

 

“They may do something to us when we’re on the bridge” retorted the boy.

 

Will dropped the ball of string and stick on the ground. No need for that anymore.  


“I guess we’re going to have to choose then. I vote for the bridge. It’s less taxing than swimming.”

 

The boy looked up at Will. He had worry blatantly written on his face.

Finally he said “ok.” It wasn’t a reassuring ok.

Will wasn’t feeling good about this, but didn’t let it show. Deep inside, he felt something awry was waiting to happen. For a brief moment, he pictured the shadowy figure hiding in between the standing bodies.

 

“It’ll be easier to not look at them. Just stick close to me.”

 

He said this to calm him, but Will had no intention of doing what he said. On the contrary, he was going to keep his eyes peeled open; this would be a perfect place for that thing to attack. He scanned the faces while the both of them wearily walked toward the bridge. He noticed heads turning at the slow pace they walked at. He also noticed none of them blinked their eyes, eyes clouded by death. It was unsettling. Not only could he see their stare, he could still feel it when he looked away. It was the same uncomfortable feeling he experienced at the hospital. He tightened his grip on the handle of the ax.

When they stepped onto the bridge, the feeling intensified. Will saw the boy feel it, as he witnessed his smaller hand grip the rope firmly; he was staring at them, too. Instinctively, Will used his free hand to peel the boy’s hands off the rope and held his hand in his. Their arms hung by their sides, hands of different sizes seeking comfort in one another’s.

 

“Keep your head down” Will whispered warmly to him.

 

The boy dropped his head down. Their movements felt calculated, as if both were reading each other’s minds and were embracing for a scare.

Will was glad he told the boy to look down. In his years with the FBI, a group of people had never made him feel the way he was feeling. Even with the lack of facial expression, he felt so much from them. Just the eyes themselves, dead as they were, held a torment of repressed anger. Will wasn’t sure if the anger was targeted at them.  

Their footsteps and the creaking of the bridge made the only sounds around them.  Will’s neck was so tense and uncomfortable, it jerked each time he turned it to look around. His jaw clenched with suspenseful anticipation. And each time nothing happened to break the tension, his jaw clenched harder. But they were nearing the end of the bridge, which was good.

However, something was nagging him, like a deep itch he couldn’t scratch. It wasn’t the boy’s tightening grasp, nor the ache in his other hand that gripped the ax. It was something different. Will thought to look behind him. When he did, he was confronted with the nameless people peering at him; they had moved without their knowing and were crowding in behind them. Their footsteps made no sound, their faces were still like statues, save the eerie smiles that surfaced on their faces. All at once. In the corner of his eye he saw the boy’s neck begin to twist, as if preparing to turn.

 

“Don’t look” he warned.

 

His neck shifted back into its resting position. Will slowly turned his head back. His mind told him to run, to dart across the bridge. But he felt he couldn’t without knowing the risks. So, Will gently squeezed the boy’s hand as if announcing something. He started walking faster and the boy got the hint and quickened his own pace to match his.

A gentle breeze had begun blowing from behind. The coolness felt nice against his sweaty nape, but Will’s dreaded curiosity made him look back again. He flipped his head back to the front immediately after and held in his reaction pursed lips. It wasn’t a breeze he was feeling, it was their breathing. Will weighed his options, as he contemplated on attacking them head on, when a sound broke his concentration. Beneath them he heard water rippling. Something was stirring in the river. Will looked down and in a flash, he saw the deck breaking and hands bursting through the opening. The boy screamed and Will whipped his head up. Pair of hands had a hold of the boy’s legs and were pulling him down quickly.  Will had fallen to his knees trying to keep the boy from being dragged in, but he lost his balance at a hard and swift tug that ripped their grasp.

 

“No!” was the last thing he heard before the boy was pulled under the bridge and into the river with a splash.

 

Desperate, Will looked around him before diving into the river, ax and all.  He hadn’t given himself the chance to look at the group of people whose facial expressions had changed into frowns.  Under water, Will floated in the cold water and his eyes searched for a sign of movement in the darkness. He caught a glimpse of air bubbles squiggling their way to the surface and looked to where they were floating from. He found the boy struggling around, hands and feet bound by rope and anchored to something on the bottom of the river.  When Will swam close enough to see his face, he saw the boy was shaking his head ‘no’, his eyes wide with fright. Realizing what he meant, Will swung around and swerved his ax, when his hand came into contact with the crushing weight of a large rock. The impact of the strike numbed his fingers long enough for Will to lose his grip on the ax, which sunk into the bottom of the river. Will went to grab it when a punch landed on his shoulder. The force pushed him into the boy, who was still moving around, holding his breath. When he composed himself again, he saw a black, shapeless figure floating in front of him. He felt the kid struggling for air behind him, he was going to drown soon if he didn’t think quick. He reached into his pocket when he received a blow to side. He held onto the boy and swayed with him. He let go of a big air bubble at this second punch. He turned to the figure which swam to give him another blow. He grabbed its arm, pulled it as close to him possible and stuck the blade of the boy’s knife multiple times into his armpit.

At the impacts, the dark figure pulled its arm back and recoiled. A red cloud formed around the dark figure. Meanwhile, he cut the boy loose, swam up to the surface with him on his shoulders. He took in a big breath, panting from the extra weight he was carrying and quickly swam to shore. Will made sure to distance themselves as far away from the shore possible before placing the boy on the ground to do CPR. After a couple of pumps to the chest the boy coughed up water. Will turned him on his side as he coughed up some more, rubbing his back. Will occasionally turned back to look at the body of water, nothing peeked from underneath except a flashlight that bobbed on the water.

 

“You had me concerned” he told the boy when he heard his coughing stop. The boy opened his eyes wider and looked at Will. He helped him up with a smile.

 

 “Alright?”

 

The boy nodded, his mouth agape. He took in a couple of breaths before his eyes squinted at the bridge. Will followed his gaze. The mob on the bridge were smiling wide, their hands raised and frozen still at mid hand wave. They both stared at the strange visual; they didn’t know what to make of it.

The sun was on full display with not a single cloud to keep it company. They walked through the tall grass that brushed against their legs and poked the tip of their fingers. Will saw a full smile creep on the boy’s face.

 

“Nice to feel warm again.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head to the sky.

 

They were headed toward the dark line Will had seen previously, except the line was transforming into the very iron gate he had pass through in the beginning. He kept a keen eye behind him, just in case someone was following them. They walked in silence as they reach the gate; the door was still open just the way he had left it. They went through it, and this time Will closed the gate shut. Right by the entrance was a dirt road that led to a town. The road had not been there before. Near it was the elevator with its door open.

 

“Huh, there’s your elevator” the boy stood by it with a perplexed look on his face. He peered at it and walked around, as if making sure it wasn’t a hallucination. Will grabbed inside his pocket and handed back his knife.

 

“This is yours.”

 

The boy grabbed it and observed it with discern. “Thanks.”

 

“Where will you go?”

The boy put the knife back in his pocket. “I’ll see where this road takes me. But tell me, where does this elevator take you? It’s not even connected to anything…”

 

Will shrugged “It takes me wherever it takes me, I have no way of knowing.”

 

“Huh” was all the boy could mutter. He snickered for a second. He put his hands in his jean pockets “Thank you, for back there.”

 

Will nodded.

He mirrored the boy and put his own hands in his pockets. The boy seemed hesitant to leave.  He gently kicked dirt around on the road. Deep down Will was the only person with whom the boy had felt comfortable in his life; he wished to see him again but he didn’t know how to verbalize it, especially to a complete stranger. So he kept this secret to himself and walked away from this special someone, a behaviour he was used to doing and would continue doing in his adult years.

Will watched him leave. He took a step inside the elevator when he leaned back out.

 

“By the way you never told me your name” Will yelled after him.

 

The boy turned around, and walked backwards to look back at Will one last time. With a bittersweet smile he responded “It’s William. ”


	6. 6

He watched the boy disappear into the horizon; he didn’t turn back again after that. A sting in his upper abdomen wished he did. He moved his hand to that spot and felt the soothing warmth of his palm through the cotton shirt. It didn’t relieve the pain entirely, not as much as Will wanted.

 

 “I suspect that is your foot, Mr. Graham.”

 

The voice from the elevator broke his concentration. He turned his head around and was instantly welcomed with a decomposing face.

  
“I can only see your foot and nothing more. Please, step inside. I feel out of place talking to a limb.” 85 gestured with his arm.

 

_The irony of hearing this coming from a dangling, talking corpse._

 

He took his final step inside “Just call me Will. I think we’re past the formalities now.”

His nose twitched at the first hint of odor, taken aback by the familiar scent. The door shut behind him, enclosing the scent within the restricted space. He followed his nose to the corner of the elevator where 85 had moved to, hanging tentatively. The smell of decay was noticeably faint.

His fingers stretched the collar of his shirt in response to the minor, temperature change in the elevator.

85 smiled, noticing Will’s reaction.  The rubbery skin on his face had changed to a soft green-blue shade.

 

“Shall we descend?”

 

Will looked at 85 and then stared idly at the control panel; he noticed that the warmer temperature had invited more maggots to reside in 85’s eye.

 

“Hmm.”

 

At the slightest bend of his head, a few larvae fell and landed on the floor of the elevator. Will looked at the critters wiggling in diverging directions, and thought of how many more were to follow if the temperature continued increasing. Two of them had landed nearby the knife he had left behind before entering the 3rd floor. He was weaponless, remembering the ax he had taken with him was now lost in the river. He picked it up, shaking away a larva that had made its way onto the blade, and stashed it away in his back pocket. He made a mental reminder to pick up more weapons in the next floor, if possible.

 

“It will become warmer the further down we go. It always does. As such, I must apologize for the odour my body will emit as we continue on.”

 

Will peered at 85 with curiosity, his eyes landing on his shoulders this time.

 

“What is below us that is radiating heat?”

 

85 looked at Will, his smile faded.

 

“Your finish line, of course.”

 

His eyes remained transfixed at a spot on his shoulder, but his imagination wandered, stirring up visuals of what that finish line looked like. A quiet snicker balled in his throat. It would be a complete letdown should he make it all the way through only to be congratulated by thick ribbon stretched horizontally like in a marathon. What would be worse is the realization that there was really no end. For there to be nothing more but additional floors on the other end of that finish line, a never-ending loop. Will drew in a deep breath and shifted his thoughts to the boy he had met instead.

Going through the conversations they had had, the similarities seemed so obvious now that Will had time to process things. A half smile crept on his face. It made him think about his own journey in life. He made his life work the way he needed it to, however he could. It took time, jumping over hurdles at every angle. And in the end, things didn’t turn out so bad for him.  For his own good, he consistently chose options that isolated him from everyone. All these choices eventually brought him to a place and time that allowed him to be where he was today.

And, it brought him to Hannibal.

He exhaled audibly.

His eyes slowly travelled back to 85’s face, who was staring back at him. The operator was quiet but his body language exuberated curiosity. Will felt curious himself about this fellow stranger, but was hesitant to ask the question that had been lingering on the tip of his tongue since the beginning.

 

“Is something the matter?” 85 sensed something was on his mind. He contemplated on the wording of his question.

 

“What I want to ask may come across as too personal.”

 

Turning his head to where Will’s eyes were glued to, 85 spoke “personal or not, it sounds like it’s something you want to know.”

 

Will took his time to rearrange his wording “How did you end up here?”

 

85 looked at Will, nodding his head gently with understanding. “Long before you came along, I, too, was looking for someone in this place.”

 

Will’s blue eyes jetted to the operator’s green shirt, now darkened to a forest green by the dry blood.

 

“You didn’t find them.”

 

His dark hair waved as he shook his head “That thing that is after you got to me and did this” his arms extended outwardly “I passed out and next thing I knew I was hooked up as you see me presently. I do remember being woken up by a smoky, accented voice over on the speaker of the control panel. It informed me of the bomb on the elevator and things I needed to know and do from now on.”

 

“A voice?”

 

“Hmm. Haven’t heard it since, no matter how hard I screamed for it.”

 

“Now you’re here.”

 

“Yes” 85 said softly, with a throb of sadness “now I’m here, helping you get out.”

 

A moment of silence passed before Will spoke again; he had an idea of the answer but asked nonetheless

 

“If I don’t survive this, will I be replacing you?”

 

“It is likely you will follow the same fate as me. Soul bound to this place, operating this elevator while your body slowly rots away, it’s quite a drastic career change even for you.”

 

Will’s mouth twitched, his index finger and thumb caressed each other in small circles “Do you feel pain?”

 

“No, that is a blessing. I just feel weaker the more my body decomposes.”

 

“Do you know what happened to this someone you were looking for?”

 

85 gave a half shrug “I don’t know. They could be still here lost like me.  Frankly speaking, not knowing whether your loved one is safe because you couldn’t protect them is the toughest part of all this.”

 

“It eats away at you” alarmed, Will realized he had unintentionally spoken aloud. His ears perked up at the sudden sound of the elevator door opening. He looked out and saw a plain door on the other side, much different to the one he saw on the second floor. The brightness outside made him squint.

 

85 stared at the control panel, huffing a small laugh at the pun Will had made, his stump caressing the metal area. The smile on his face was gone, replaced by a heavy sadness “Guilt is good at that.”

 

Will walked out of the elevator “That it is” he whispered, more to himself than to 85. His squint remained, brought on by the brightness of the white void that surrounded him. Blinding and sterile, it hurt his eyes to look at anything but the door. He inched his way to the door and studied it. Will took note of the colour of the door as a byproduct of a light gray and an off white colour that aged over the years into a sickly yellow. The door was unfamiliar to him, and he didn’t know if it was a good sign or not. He pushed the door open and found himself being sucked through the other side by the air pressure in the white void. His shoes hit the concrete floor hard as he stumbles into the room. He catches his breath, feeling winded and unsteady. Once he regained his balance, he observes the small space. The cot by a brick wall, the dirty sink and toilet across it, it slowly dawned on him it was a prison cell, disturbingly, his old prison cell at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Out of instinct he walks over to the bar door and to no surprise, he finds it locked. Confusion wrinkled his brow, although if Will was being honest with himself, fear also added lines to that furrow. He peeked out to the hallway through the bars and saw it empty. But it isn’t quiet; he hears a noise. The soft sound of clanking keys and footsteps travelled past the strong door in the hallway that secluded the inmates from the rest of the world.

 

“Mr. Graham. Odd seeing you back here” startled, his eyes veer toward the source of the sound.

 

 “Of all places, I never dreamt of finding you here again. Did your conscious finally break you? Or did Hannibal throw you away like leftovers?

 

As if on cue, the heavy door opened in the hallway. Chilton, accompanied by orderlies rushed down to his cell. Will backed away from the door, still trying to register what was happening, and more importantly why.

 

“You know the routine, turn around and place your hands through the bars.” Will focused his attention on Chilton. It felt surreal to see his skin intact and unscathed by the flames that engulfed his entire being thanks to the Red Dragon. Chilton was looking like his usual arrogant self, untouched by time.

 

 “Time is ticking.”

 

He obeyed, feeling a stab of unwanted familiarity as he felt the cool handcuffs press up against his wrists. Two orderlies entered his cell; one quickly chained his legs with shackles while the other watched. The orderly in the hallway handcuffed his hands with another handcuff while he unlocked the first one that chained him to the bar door. He was escorted out of the cell, chains dragging. Will looked into Gideon’s cell and found him sitting on the floor, back up against the brick wall of the cell, staring back at him with a neutral look on his face, alive and well.

They walk through the heavy door and down a labyrinth of hallways until they reached the inside of a room.

He is strapped to a chair, his arms are bound its metal arms, with a tourniquet on his left bicep. Chilton inches toward him. The orderlies are behind him, the shuffling instruments on the metal tray, making noise.

 

“I’m not bothering with the consent form; you’ve already signed it the last time you were here” Chilton smiles. With a look, he summoned a nurse who quickly appeared from behind. Dumbfounded, Will looks at him

 

“Wha-”

 

He was left with the word half spoken as the syringe needle pierced into his vein.

Will’s head lolled back as the truth serum hit his system, and he stares at the fluorescent lights above. Before the pounding beat of his pulse drowned out the noises around him, he heard Chilton quietly whispering into his ear “Good luck.” The lights start flickering, gradually at first, and then at an alarming speed. The sodium amytal took over his vision and before he knew it, everything went dark. 

When his eyes opened, it was to darkness again.

A groan escaped his lips as he moved his head around; he can feel damp dirt sticking to his cheeks. He sat up slowly and wiped the dirt off his face with the back of his hand, mind feeling light yet heavy at the same time. He closed his eyes shut again until the feeling dissipated. It was awhile before he was able to open them and get up without falling down. The wind whipping in his face didn’t help. He’s in a forest, and fortunately, judging from the trees around him, it isn’t the same forest as the one on the 3rd floor. Unfortunately for him, that’s all he could deduct. Based on the small humps of snow sporadically covering the ground, he assumed it’s the beginning of winter or spring.

The whistling of the sharp wind and his light trembling reminded him he is under-dressed. He rubbed his hands together under the moonlight, while cautiously walking straight ahead, without a clue as to where to go. He was comforted by the hauntingly beautiful nighttime sounds of the nocturnal animals that accompanied him. The background noise mentally took him back to his farm house in Wolftrap, when he would let his pack of dogs out one last time before turning in for the night. Crisp, late evenings where the air was cool enough to hurt his lungs, and the darkness blanketing his overly stimulated mind after a day of work. These moments, although short-lived, were precious to him; the tranquility of the outdoors eased his broken mind and it was the only time he felt whole. Will tried to keep the moment alive, and found it difficult to hold onto that feeling while the gusts of wind chilled him to his bones. His trembling had gotten more obvious. He stopped to look around. There were no indications of any clearings or buildings in sight.  The wind had picked up speed; Will could feel specks of snow flying directly at his face, as he walked against the direction of the wind.

He was squinting, looking beyond the vast area of trees in search for any shelter, when a beam of light from behind him appeared. His eyes widened at the abrupt illumination. A circular portion of the forest came to life in colour, while a shadow in the shape of his silhouette is casted onto the trees before him. Will whipped his body around just as the light turned off. He stared into the darkness, eyes on high alert, in search for the source, hoping to see the light again.

He does.

The light turned on again. He looked off to the side and shielded his eyes with a hand. The light turned off again, but this time he heard a click. The sound caught him off guard, and Will’s heart dropped. Out of instinct, his right hand slowly reached behind him for the knife in his back pocket. When he heard the click again, he loosened his grip on the handle of the knife. The clicking sound reminded him of the sound one might make when turning on a flashlight. His face held a grimace while looking off to the side. He witnessed a faint outline of a person under the moonlight. The light turned off again, with a click. The alarming sound of twigs crunching echoed loudly with the direction of the wind, before the light turned back on again. He noticed the figure closer in distance.

Click

Will steps back. The light turned on again

Click

He concentrates on the figure’s head, attempting to make out its face, but

Click

The light is clicked off too quickly.

Click

The wind is blowing harder in his ear,

Click

amplifying the sounds

Click

Of their steps

Click

The thick air

Click

Is making it hard

Click

To breathe

Click

Click

Click

Now the light is turning on and off in quick successions. The figure is closing the distance between them in stop motion; one second it’s far off and the next it’s four steps closer. The flickering light is making it hard for him to not keep his eyes closed for long in between blinks. He feels colder than before, thanks to the overproduction of sweat.

Taking a step back, his foot slips on something icy. He almost loses his balance, but he manages to stay on both feet. Involuntarily, he has looked down in the process. When he looked back up he sees the figure in front of him and in that split second, the light shines in his eyes, blinding him. The light releases a screeching, jarring sound that tears into his head. The sound mutated into something more horrendous and Will tried covering his ears, but the sound changed again, something higher in pitch, immobilizing him where he stood. He shut his eyes tight; the pain felt like it was splintering his head, pulling tissues apart, disconnecting himself from his body. His mouth opened to scream out in pain when the sound abruptly stops.

Even the wind had stopped.

Besides his heavy panting, he hears the sound of footsteps around him. He goes to move his hands when he realizes he’s unable to. His eyes open to sees them strapped to a chair. A familiar hand hovered above left shoulder moments before landing on it.

 

“What are you doing back here?” A stern look on Chilton’s face accompanied the question.

In shock, Will shook his head in disbelief; he’s back at the BSHCI. He felt drops of sweat sliding down his face as he glances around to see the same nurse bending over him with another needle of the sodium amytal. Flinching as the needle enters the same spot, he felt his eyes burning with sick heat.

 

“You’re not done, go back.”

 

 “What am I suppose to do?” His eyelids felt heavy again but this time, he doesn’t resist succumbing to the sweet sleep.

 

“Don’t get distracted. Focus, Will” Chilton’s voice sounded far away, echoing in Will’s head

 

The echo of the final word lasted for what felt like an eternity. As if the syllable was stretched out at its maximum, until it became nothing more but a humming that vibrated throughout him. That humming lightened his whole being, floating in the air like a feather, and the noise in his mind was numbed out. This high is stronger than the last.

His breathing settled, but his body temperature was rising, he could feel it. The growing fever doesn’t bother him as much with the drug high dampening the worst of it. But he knew the high wouldn’t last. He wanted it to, keeping his eyes closed as if to elongate it, hoping it wouldn’t end.

He exhaled deeply. That release of air brought him back to consciousness; the fog that consumed his mind was lifting.

In this awareness, Will was able to feel the seat of the chair underneath him again, he moved in the seat as if to ground himself. His fingers brushed across the leather on the arm of the chair, feeling the texture of the soft cow skin. His fingers stopped.

_Leather?_

Hesitant, he opened his eyes to see. He was right, he wasn’t in the same chair. This gray leathered and metal chair is too prim and comfortable for a place like the BSHCI. It seemed more suitable for an office.

In the periphery of his visual field, Will catches a movement: the crossing of legs. His eyes follow the length of those legs up to the face. Will inhaled sharply, his nails dug into the leather, embracing himself for the word that was to come out of his mouth.

 

“Hannibal?”


	7. 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm going to try to upload regularly. key word is try.

Will noticed his right eye twitching out of stress. He was also sweating more profusely; the collar of his shirt was damp against his hot neck. They were in Hannibal’s office, so it appeared. The overhead lights lit the room with a low, soft glow, which accentuated Hannibal’s already high cheekbones, but it did nothing to soothe Will’s doubts.

 

His fever was causing his eyes to water, blurring Hannibal’s face as he stared back at him. He wanted – _needed_ \- to know that what he was seeing was real. Will went to get up when he found his legs immobile. His arms were restricted just the same; he was only at liberty to move them side to side at a fraction of an inch. He felt tied to the chair but saw nothing visibly holding him down. He continuously shuffled in his seat, shifting the whole chair on the floor but not himself.

 

The staggering movements made his breathing harder to catch, each shake loosening a lock of wet hair and immediately sticking to his forehead like a magnet.

 

Hannibal sat in his chair with his hands on his lap, observing Will without the slightest concern on his face. His almond-shaped eyes blinked slowly with comfort and ease.

 

A loud click and a sharp flash of blue light distracted Will from his strenuous exercise. The table to his left held a strobe metronome; its arm clicking as it moved from one end of the instrument to the next. He tried his hardest to look away. Flashing faster each time, he felt like a mosquito attracted to an ultraviolet light. A heaviness set in him. He started slumping in the chair, and closing his eyes was futile; the light was strong enough to still be seen behind his eyelids.  

 

“What’s happening?” his voice sounded weak and tired.

 

The metronome filled the silence between them with clicks, each of them felt like a needle inserting in his head. His breathing disturbed with each sound, he felt on the verge of panic.

 

“Will”

 

He turned to Hannibal with heavy-lidded eyes “you dropped your forgiveness” Hannibal gestured with his hand.

 

Will noticed, as much as he could trust what he was seeing behind burning eyes, the flashing light was morphing Hannibal’s face into something unrecognizable.

He turned back to the table on which the metronome sat, and noticed the kitchen knife he had in his back pocket placed in front of the device.

 

Hannibal placed his hand back on his lap “Will you try again?”

 

He doesn’t hear him, the sound and light of the strobe engulfs him, and it is all he can focus on.

 

“Will I find you?” Will moaned, closing his eyes as hot tears squeeze out of them.

 

What he doesn’t see, is the corner of Hannibal’s mouth curl into a small, knowing smile.

 

A blast of wind snapped Will out of his dream-like state. He found himself back in the forest, sitting on the hard ground. His hands firmly planted on the frozen soil, as if bracing himself for something. And for a good reason: the figure is still there. It’s a feet away from him, still clicking the flashlight on and off. Will lifted his gaze up to meet the figure’s head. It took a moment for his tired eyes to make out Hannibal’s face, back to its usual state. Hannibal moves toward him, one slow step at a time. In a matter of seconds, Hannibal’s neck abruptly bends to the right in one jerky movement; the side of the head completely touching the right shoulder, as if invisible hands forced his neck to bend- _break_ \- like that.

 

_Click_

 

 The light turned off and Will was left in complete darkness, body twitching with an odd mixture of feverish heat and damp cold.

 

The illumination comes back on, but this time from above. Will lifted his head and shielded his eyes from the bright light with his left hand. He squinted long enough for his eyes to adjust to the strong stimulation. When they do, Will notices a discolouration on his hand as it is brought at eye level. His eyes widened at the recognition of fresh blood. He checks to see his both the knife and the right hand that held it were also stained in red. Will struggled to uncurl his stiff fingers to reveal the black handle and a tiny puddle of blood pooling in the palm of his hand.

 

He looked around him, trembling with eyes wide with shock: he doesn’t remember how he got onto the elevator. He peeks up at 85 who is looking at him with confusion.

 

“Will, what’s the matter?”  85 noticed Will’s hands quivering with more force as he held them out.

 

“How did I get here?”

 

85 paused before speaking “I’m not sure what you mean.”

 

Will wiped his sweaty brow with the outside of his left hand, smearing fresh blood on it.

 

 “I don’t remember getting here” his chest rising and falling quickly, heaving for air.

 

85 angled his head.

 

Will flipped his hands in observation down on his lap “I don’t even know whose blood this is.”

 

A fear struck him in his chest

_Did I hurt Hannibal?_

 

A deeper voice disrupted his thoughts “You’re looking a little peaky Mr. Graham, if you don’t mind my saying. I may be crazy…”

 

Will looked back at where 85 had been and finds himself in the backseat of a 4-door car under the pale moonlight.

 

“…but, you look ill. Where’s your doctor? Have you found him, yet?”

 

Gideon is in the driver’s seat, looking at him through the rear view mirror. Will sees his own arm extended, pointing a now blood-free kitchen knife at him, clean hands shaking as it had been doing on the elevator.

 

Will’s voice is cracking as he speaks “I don’t know where he is.”

 

Gideon holds their eye contact, examining his words until he breaks it off to look out the passenger window,

 

 “They’re here for you.”

 

He followed the direction of his eyes just as the back passenger door opens, hands fling out of the darkness and grab Will by the shoulders, dragging him out of the car. Out of fright, he struggled out of their hold, pushing them away with as much force he could muster. A strong pair of hands bring him up on his feet by his underarms, and he comes face to face with Matthew Brown. The orderly greets him with smirk, as he and the other orderlies turn him around. Just as he’s turned around, the setting around him changes once more, and he is re-acquainted with the hallways of the BSHCI; Gideon disappeared along with the outside setting. These very same walls had darkened, as if stained in soot. The floors were dirty, littered with clothing, dirt and leaves. They travelled through the hallways to arrive at the same room as they had done so before. They sat him down in the same metal chair, strapping him to it for the 3rd time. The right hand still held the knife, as Matthew tightened the arm strap with a tug, he winked at him as he stood back up and backed up to lean against the wall.

 

One of the orderlies rushed out the room, the crisp, white uniform a shocking contrast against the walls. He re-entered momentarily, pushing a mummy- like figure on a wheelchair. Save for the mouth and eyes, the person was medically dressed from head to toe in bloodied bandages. The orderly stationed the wheelchair directly in front of Will, using his foot to flip down the brakes.

 

“You have some nerve coming back here, after what you’ve done to me.” Behind the muffling and lisp, there was no doubt that stern voice belonged to Chilton. Matthew sneered at this, as he looked and fiddled with his name tag on his uniform.

 

The nurse with the tourniquet and needle appeared from behind Will, but he paid him no mind. Chilton’s menacing green eyes held his attention; they glowed alarmingly in Will’s hazy mind.

 

“As much as I would like to lock you up, and I assure you, I am very tempted to do just that, you need to find your way out of this.”

 

The pinch of a needle brought Will’s attention to the nurse in white kneeling before him. The man in white looked up at Will. Even with the surgical mask obstructing half of his face, Will recognized those amber eyes. He grimaced as the needle is pulled out; the spot is tender and has already started bruising. The tourniquet is taken off and Hannibal graces Will’s bound hand with his index finger. Will desperately tries to hold onto it before it’s pulled away from his grasp. Hannibal steps back to stand beside Chilton, placing a hand on his bandaged shoulder, like a pet.

 

Will has no energy to speak, although he wants to. He gives into the fog, and rests his head against the head of the chair. Dead weight, his mind goes quiet.

 

 

He awakens to painful stiffness; his tender body felt like it had been put through the wringer. He is lying on something soft, and upon opening his eyes, he finds himself on a bed in a room, dimly lit by a desk light. Neither the room nor the bed is his, that he can deduct. In his surrounding, he can make out a small desk covered in what seem to be large books. A large poster hangs by two corners above the desk; the bottom two have curled away from the wall. Will listens tentatively, hearing no noise save for the ticking of a clock he cannot see. Out of instinct, he attempts to sit up, contracting his abdominal muscles with an intention he cannot achieve. His whole body felt lead-heavy, weighed down to the bed. The temperature in the room, Will noticed, is drastically hot, so much so he can feel his skin sticking to the bed sheet with the added sweat. The external heat is adding to the fever he feels consuming his body.

 

In his struggle, he noticed a soft blue glow coming from underneath the bed. He turned his head to look at the foot of the bed as much as he could, observing the light and nervously waiting. He thought of the metronome again when the glow appeared, and he awaited for the familiar ticking sound.

 

He squinted at the movement he saw at the edge of the bed. The bed sheets were wrinkling, scrunching up as if something was pulling on them. His chest tightened with the all too familiar sense of dread.

 

_Or someone._

 

Something starting poking over the edge of the bed by his feet.

 

One.

 

Then two.

 

Then three.

 

Four and five.

 

A pale hand had made its way over and onto the bed. It slithered at an angle, making its way toward Will’s left leg; the arm attached to the hand stretched to reach his long limb. In that split second Will panicked, exerting much force to move his leg away from the hand, managing only to wrinkle the bed sheet underneath. The long digits reached the lower part of his leg; the fingers curl to slide underneath the pants and make contact with the skin just above the ankle bone. Will heaved for air at the touch; the hand is cold enough to burn his skin. His body went into some form of shock, his body jerked involuntarily in the same way the body would react to prevent someone from dying from asphyxiat-

 

“Hey… HEY?”

The second ‘hey’ brought Will out of the deep stupor, and he loudly fought for breath as he sat himself up. In front of him was a young man, standing with a perplexed look etched on his face. When his breathing settled down, he acknowledged the presence of the stranger with a look. He scanned the man’s face; it was vaguely familiar but a bolt of pain in his head interrupted him. He cringed as he tried to soothe himself with gentle head rubs.  

 

“You ok?” asked the stranger.

 

As he rubbed the back of his head, he took a quick look around. He was no longer in the room; he was now sitting on a bench outside under the night sky, and with better inspection, he made out the familiar layout of his old college campus.

 

He looked back at the stranger, he recognized the face as that of a former classmate of his, but his name was lost to him.

 

He grabbed the edge of the bench and is relieved to find he is able to move around this time. He got up faster than anticipated, which worsened the pain. He wavered while he stood; the hand he used to push himself up swung back to his side, not before unintentionally hitting his back pocket and feeling the solid shape of the knife tucked in it.

 

The guy extended his arm as if to help but it doesn’t fully extend and he never touches Will. His ears are beginning to ring, which makes it hard for him to hear what the guy says next

 

“Long night? You looked like you were passed out.”

 

Will shook his head, not in response to the classmate.

He retracted his arm back to his side, his face softened but is somewhat creased with concern and nerves.

 

“Ok. Well, I just wanted to make sure, you know, after what happened today.”

 

Will’s brow furrowed

 

 “Today?”

 

The guy mirrored his face with a furrow of his own, gently jerking his head back “yeah you know, with Derek, being up in your space like that.”

 

Will lowered his gaze to the ground, faintly recalling someone by that name. He nodded his head in understanding, mainly to ease the awkwardness he sensed created between the both of them.

The classmate pursed his lips, adjusting the backpack strap on his shoulder.

 

“I’ll see you around?” He stood around, waiting for Will to give him the ok; he hesitantly leaves when he doesn’t get one.

 

His words had fallen on deaf ear; the empath was deep in his thoughts, not noticing his body’s sudden swaying. In the midst of his thoughts, he notices a bench far in the distance brightly lit by a lamp post next to it. There, beyond the reach of the light, was a shadow of a figure. An apprehensive look fell over Will’s face. Staring into the darkness, he was filled with a sense of foreboding that chilled his blood and tingled his skin with an itch he couldn’t relieve, no matter how much he scratched. His senses shifted, so sudden, to the lower part of his body, down to his feet.

At first, there was nothing but his feet in his sight. In a blink, he saw something reaching for them. A pair of dark hands had emerged from underneath the bench. Razor-sharp fingers enclosed around each of his ankles, their cutting contact wheezed a sharp breath from Will. Wincing from the pain, he hears movement, a slow, dragging-like noise. He glanced around but saw nothing.

He however felt something.

He could sense it.

Behind him, a faint breathing bounced off his nape, cooling the sweat droplets that collected there. He heard the bench behind him creaking with weight. Through the fog of his heavy head and feverish sight, he knew what was behind him; when he had glanced around, the figure by the lamp post had vanished. His body moved to the strong palpitations of his heart, and the pain in his head throbbed to the beat. He turned his head up.

 

 

 

In the dark, the ringing was earsplitting. The sound was strong enough to make Will want to shut his eyes to alleviate the noise, to cover his ears to deafen the high pitch. Just to quiet it a bit. But he can’t shut them. And he can’t move.

The danger lies by his eyes, threatened by the edges of long, sharp nails, foreign palms keep his head in place. He can only look up but he guesses he is back in the room. Cold hands have a hold of all four limbs, bounding him to the bed. He sensed the bed area by his head sinking slowly, first the left side then the right. His eyes dart around in panic.  Something is inching into his vision of field something orange–

 

“You feeling sick?”

 

The voice startles Will. A light flashes on and off in his face. He squints at the guy before him with a flashlight. He feared he was back in the forest, but the bench he is leaning up against told him otherwise.

 

“You don’t look so well.”

 

Will’s mind is foggy, but he remembered being on a bed, and now he’s back outside, by the bench where he last saw his classmate. The ringing in his ears is gone and the pain in his head went with it, but he still felt light-headed thanks to the fever.

He looked down at his feet, free from the grip of sharp fingers. He sluggishly sat back down on the bench. He didn’t want to, but his tired body wasn’t allowing him to move. He wanted to be left alone but this fucking guy…

 

“Stop that” Will warned.

 

The guy turned off the flashlight, and held it by his waist. 

 

“What are you doing out here?”

 

Will rubbed his eyes “Do I know you?”

 

He doesn’t catch the brief look of hurt on the guy’s face.

 

“It’s Derek.”

 

_That name._

 

In the quiet that lingered between them, his mind slowly brought up memories of a classmate by the same name. If his memory served him well, this was the very same student whom Will caught being glanced by constantly. He would typically not make much of it, considering a lot of people would either distance themselves from him out of fear, or would gawk at him with disdain. However, with Derek, Will felt it was neither. He had always felt something off about him. He never felt uncomfortable around him but he gave off a vibe...

 

“You still haven’t answered my initial question” Derek reminded sharply.

 

He opened his eyes and glanced at him for moment. He observed his square jaw, the curve of his cheek bones and the brown, straight hair that was parted to the side. He was built a bit wider than Will, but he estimated they were about the same height.

 

_Does he look like..._

_No._

 

Will muted the thought, he didn’t have time for this. He brushed Derek’s need for attention aside. Instead he spent his energy getting up, slowly this time. He started walking, at whichever pace he could, away from him.

He oriented himself to his location on the campus. He believed to be in the south end of the campus. So he would have to continue walking east until he found the main street.

 

_Then what?_

 

“I’ve always admired your efficiency with words.” Derek walked up to Will, arms behind his back. There was a skip in his step and Will noticed.

 

His words didn’t sit well with him; it wasn’t the way he said them, but the intentions behind them. Will was no stranger to putting up a fight if need be, but he knew he was in no state to be throwing punches. He could lose his balance just by running.

 

Derek angled his head at Will “You look like you either need to see a doctor or are having one major hangover.”

 

Will kept his silence, but his fever was deteriorating his sight; he was becoming near-sighted now that far away objects appeared blurry.

His eyesight wasn’t the only thing deteriorating. A slight breeze made Will feel cold to the bone, walking brought jolts of pain to every muscle in his body. He didn’t know if he was going to make it. However brief the thought was, it rang true.

 

 “There goes that mouth of yours again” Derek smirked, he lowered his voice as he stopped walking, letting Will walk pass him “I’ve always admired it.”

 

Will heard the hard snap of something solid hitting his head, smacking him suddenly right in the temple and blacking out his vision.

 

 

Now Will is looking into the darkness, he knows his eyes are opened because of the blue hue visible in the periphery of his vision. He can feel the sharp fingers by his cheekbones and corner of his eyes again, palms on his temples; he is back on the bed.

 

A pair of orange eyes floated above him. They edged closer to him and at a certain distance, Will made out the details of the upside down face, of Derek’s face. The face is menacingly close to Will, his mouth peeled open, showing a glimpse of long fangs. Out of instinct, Will stretched his neck out, the nails cutting into his face as he moved to make contact with its face. In a snap, he bit off a chunk of its flesh from its cheek, sending the Derek screeching as he pulled his hands away from Will’s face. He spat out the lump of tissue off to the side, leaving a trail of blood and saliva as it flew over and landed at the end of the bed. The grips on Will’s limbs loosened, allowing him to sit up. In the seconds it took for Derek to recover from the attack, Will flipped over onto his knees, and he reached behind him. In one swift move, he jammed the blade into Derek’s neck with intense force and pulled it out. The other man erupted in raw, jagged screams as he fell onto the bed face first.  He lay there, noises muffled by the mattress, motionless. Crawling to the edge of the bed, Will still had the knife in his hand, now bloodied from the attack. He was about to jump off the bed but instead he stopped, gripping himself onto the edge of the bed.

 

There was no floor. Where there should have been a floor, was instead a void, illuminated by the blue light he had seen peeking over the bed. Will looked down; there was no telling how far down it went, or whether he would survive the fall. He heard loud gurgling coming from behind him. He looked back and saw Derek, army crawling toward Will, eyes more orange than before - _Or is it just me?_ \- drooling heaps of blood and saliva.

 

He took the chance, and flung himself off the bed, falling down into the blue light. The falling felt more like floating, and the further down he entered the void, the smaller the darkness of the room became until he was consumed by the light. When he reached solid flooring, he felt his body hitting it as gently as a feather would land on solid ground, his head rested softly on the floor and he lost himself to deep sleep.


	8. 8

The ride to the 5th floor was quiet as 85 stared at Will, observing the man lost in his own thoughts. He had stepped onto the elevator after completing the 4th floor and gently flopped on the floor, as if out of exhaustion. 85 was used to seeing an array of odd behaviours from his passengers, and this was not out of the ordinary. He patiently waited for Will to wake up, which took longer than the elevator operator had anticipated. When he finally did, he sat up and stared at the lights above, before behaving erratically upon seeing blood on his hands. He claimed to not know how it got there. 

 

Although the process had been slow, he was able to finally settle down. There was a lot of shaking and nervous glances before he became as he was now, absent-mindedly transfixed on the elevator door. He noticed Will's averted face was of a wet, sickly whiteness that concerned him. He brushed off his helpless concern and welcomed a piqued curiosity 

 

He knew better than to disturb him but, he was itching to know what was occupying his passenger’s mind. What kind of secrets was he harvesting? He wondered what coiled in the recesses of his mind to have him looking the way he did. Most importantly, 85 looked back at the control panel and sadness loomed over. His eyesight was also deteriorating but the number 5 was still clear to him. Would he see Will again? The thought brought memories of those who came before him, all of whom left the elevator and never came back. An operator was never meant to become attached any passenger who walked through those doors, and over time many had come and gone. But he had grown fond of Will. Not a particularly chatty individual, but he didn’t mind that. After a while there wouldn’t be much to talk about. As each subsequent floor became more difficult, 85 often found his visitors holding a blank stare, much like the one Will had on his face, the further down they went.

 

A lost lover in search of his other half, much like 85 had been at one point. But there was something about Will that made him believe he stood a chance. He noticed from the very beginning his eyes held a glimmer of strength, a flicker of primitive hunger he hadn’t seen in the others who came before him. It made him hopeful, and although he couldn’t provide Will with all the answers, quiet hope was something he could offer.

 

His passenger remained indifferent as the elevator door slid open. It was useless for 85 to peek out to see what was on the other side considering he couldn’t see anything beyond the perimeter of the elevator. He looked back at Will, who struggled to come out of his dream-like stupor. He watched as the visitor struggled to push himself up and shuffle his way out of the elevator.

 

85 watched as sections of his body vanished out of the elevator, until only the darkness was staring back at him. The door closed and the elevator shook with movement. He let out a sigh and hung out with the familiar sadness like many times before, serenaded by the low humming of the elevator. He watched as the red light behind the number 5 button flicked off, with the expectation for the 6 to light up in its place.

 

It didn’t.

 

Instead, the humming was cut short; the elevator came to an abrupt halt, almost knocking the operator off balance. 85 reached behind him to steady himself as the elevator’s movement eased. The elevator came to a gradual stillness, encapsulating the operator with an eerie silence that weighed heavily on his mind. It was not like the elevator to stop suddenly in between floors. He fiddled with the buttons on the control panel, emphasizing his efforts on the number 6. Disobeying his orders, the elevator opened its door. 85 froze in his place as he thought to himself what procedures were in place for situations like these. The resolution he sought from pressing buttons came in the form of a figure that walked in. In a cleanly pressed, dark-coloured suit, the gentleman turned his stern face to 85. A brief silence preluded the sound of his voice, orotund and deep in presence.

 

“I’m here for Will Graham.”


	9. 9

Leaves crunched under Will’s shoes. The air was calm and for a change, dusk provided a comfortably warm temperature. He stood still and closed his eyes to allow the warmth to hug him, to seep through his wet clothes and heat his bones. His body responded to the change with a shudder. He still felt weak, his fever hadn’t gotten worse but it hadn’t subsided either. He looked at the grand estate he had been transported to from behind the open gate. The area had a familiar vibe. He had squeezed his body through the small opening, not before looking at the metal crest encased at the top of the gate. Casted in metal was a wild hog, adorned with a leaf on either side, and topped with a crown and sealed with the word VERGER on the bottom.

 

The estate looked different from the last time unfortunate circumstances brought him here. The front part of the building had been swallowed by deep green ivy and the windows had been vandalized, displaying spider web like cracks. Its desolate and unkempt state on the outside indicated to Will that it had been unoccupied for a long time.

 

_But not too long,_ Will thought, looking at a police car stationed in the circular driveway, hazard lights blinking. He noticed the driver’s door was wide open, with the interior lights still on and the car door beeping: someone had been in a hurry. He cautiously made his way toward it, and hunched over to peek inside. Nothing looked really out of place. He noticed the glove department, and he stretched his sore muscles to open it. The corner of his eyes caught the dangling car keys still in the ignition.

 

 Amid the pile of dirty napkins and folded papers, he found a flashlight. He had hoped for a gun, but the knife he still had with him would suffice for the meantime. Will stood back upright slowly, and hung onto the edge of the open door to wait out the dizziness that had surfaced. He carefully closed the door, not before he dug his hands into his front pocket and dropped the car keys in it. Just in case. He grimaced in pain as he took his temperature with the back of his hand up to this forehead. He gulped.

 

He made his way to the front entrance, with alerted eyes. He suspected his fever was dangerously high enough to cause slight vertigo to fast bodily movements. He made a mental note of it. The front door to the mansion was slightly ajar; Will pushed it farther open with his foot. His automatic response upon entering was positioning his hands in the Harries position; flashlight in his left hand placed under the knife in his right.

 

 If the outer image wasn’t indicative enough of its vacancy, the inside made it alarmingly clear. Black stains which Will believed was mold or dirt, adorned the entrance hallway and walls, and a thick layer of it carpeted the entryway floor. The remaining light of the setting sun splayed through the open door and illuminated dangling objects hanging from the ceiling. Will stopped for a closer inspection, realizing what they were.  His walking resumed, but not before his eyes lingered for a few seconds more, as if deciphering what the barbed balls of bones were warning him of.

 

The end of the entryway led to three diverging routes, one of which headed to the second floor via a dilapidated wooden staircase that curved from the left. At the base of it lied a heap of intact wooden rubble, as if construction had been abandoned midway.  The obvious state of the staircase limited his options to two routes instead of three; he was stuck on the main floor it seemed. Under the curve of the stairs was a weathered painting on the wall. In its prime, Will supposed it had been a nice painting, but time had been unkind to it; the minor peeling and cracking gave away its age. Will looked at the two available routes.

 

Not having an inkling of an idea where to go, he decided on a whim to turn left. This decision led him to attentively curve to the right, around the corner that connected the entryway to the beginning of a long hallway. He made his way down it, straying farther away from the entrance and noticing the increasing darkness that came with it: Will was thankful for the flashlight. With quiet anticipation, he walked with calculated steps, putting one foot in front of the other while checking either side of the hallway. He remained vigilant with eyes as wide open as a fever could permit, until a subtle eeriness borrowed his attention. His feet came to a dead stop to process what he had been looking but not seeing. Apart from the absence of doors, and subsequently, rooms, the length of the hallway concerned him. He shone the light down the stretch of it. What lay beyond, from what he could make out, was a fog of darkness, so thick and opaque in density it swallowed almost the ray of light.  Uneasy, Will shifted side to side. He looked behind him, weighing his chances and opting to return back to the entryway moments later. He proceeded with more speed than before, which, keeping his mental note in check, looked like a normal walking pace.  If he was honest he didn’t necessarily know what lied beyond that darkness- Will peeked behind him - nor did he want to. 

 

He hurried quietly back to the broken stair case. The sun had vanished behind the brick wall where the door once was and had set a black veil in the open space; the darkness around him had brought unnatural changes. In the time that had lapsed, the area looked as if it had aged. The wooden stairs were more dilapidated than they had been before; more steps were broken or simply missing, and the remnant of the wooden wreckage on the floor had been splintered into thin wooden ribbons. The image Will had spotted under the stairs had peeled more; leaving traces of its former self sprinkled onto the soiled floor. He continued straight ahead, passing by the broken stairs and taking a slight left around a corner. There, he stared down the hallway. This side of the mansion was, if it were possible, darker than the other side he had been in. Dark enough to not only require the use of a flashlight, Will was at the mercy of the device, only capable of seeing what the spherical light projected onto. He stuck to his spot, verifying what was around him. A surprising relief came up when his light landed on a doorknob. That very same relief turned into anxiety seconds later upon discovering the entire length of the hallway, as far as the light could illuminate, was populated with doors on both sides.

 

Reluctantly, he went to the first door on his left. He put his ear to it, hearing silence on the other side. He held his knife with his first three fingers and used the remaining two and the palm of his hand to twist the door knob. It was locked. He went to the door directly across it and repeated the same procedure. This one didn’t budge, either. He continued this for the next few doors, and not a single one opened.

 

He inched to the one next in line. This particular room, unlike the others, was occupied. A sound was certainly there, and he couldn’t make sense of the hurried string of words penetrating through the door. He retreated, discovering the low rumble fell silent just as he did so. Will looked at the door, a wave of anxiety washed over him. He shone the light onto the door and took another step back. His pounding heart ticked away the seconds of silence, slowly down only when he could hear the resuming whispers over the loud heartbeats.

 

He decided to try a farther door, so as to not disturb whatever was inside again. The landing of one of his back steps made a sharp cracking sound. He lifted his right foot off the floor, and pointed the light at the pieces of broken egg shells. Based on what he saw, whatever was in it had hatched. He followed the pieces of egg shells with his light and stopped on an egg nest in the space between two doors. He crouched by them to gain a better view of the long, white eggs. Placing the knife on the floor, he took an egg in a hand and looked inside. He tiled it and emptied a large amount of red liquid onto the floor.

 

_Blood?_

 

A worry fell over him as he began imagining what kind of hatchling had emerged from it. He dropped the shell back in the nest, wiping his hand down the length of his leg and grabbed back the knife.

 

At this point, Will considered his chances, however few they were.  He looked back as if contemplating on the feasibility of climbing those dilapidated stairs, or venturing into the dark cloud in the other hallway. Neither option felt reasonable. His over-thinking mind came to a quick halt upon hearing the creaking of an opening door. He scanned the light around until he saw the door, and the figure that stood by it.

 

His arm muscles tightened in response to his hand tightening onto their respective objects. The light shone onto the dark silhouette of a faceless figure, which slowly melted, dissolving like sand onto the floor. Like liquid sand, the black mass took on the form of a large snake, which began slithering toward him. Will’s legs recoiled out of the way, flattening his body up against the wall closest to him. The snake ignored his abrupt movements, passing him as it continued its wavy motion down the hallway. Some distance away, the snake came to an eventual stop, its black head turning to Will. The head froze in this position for some time, empty eyes staring as if waiting. The head turned back around and the snake resumed its slithering for a few feet before it stopped and turned its head back to him. Will understood then what it wanted but doubted its intentions. At this point, the options he had were few, none of which guaranteed an outcome in his favour. 

 

Will observed its beady eyes, realizing that he indeed had no other choice.

 

He shadowed the snake down the expansive hallway, mindfully keeping a safe distance between them as they passed multiple doors. Will nervously watched his guide, naturally expecting the worse to happen, but receiving no surprises.  The serpentine movements came to a stop when the snake derailed away from the middle of the hallway, toward a door to Will’s left. Its writhe body twisted into a coil beside it and finished by facing Will. It looked like an ordinary door much like the ones he had tried opening. He leaned his head to it as close as possible without touching it, never breaking his eye contact from the snake. He pulled his head back, hearing nothing alarming on the other end. He twisted the doorknob, simultaneously pushed the door open and backed away. Hands reverted back in the Harries position, he bounced the light back at the snake, making sure it had stayed put.

 

The door opened to a room about the size of a small walk-in closet. Right in the middle of the small, vacant room were a set of stairs leading down to a lower level. When he deemed it safe enough, he entered the room, backing into it as the snake’s eyes followed his every move, until he shut the door. He couldn’t make sense of the snake, but the burning heat on his cheeks told him he hadn’t the sufficient energy to ponder on it. He pointed the light down a long flight of metal stairs which endlessly spiraled down to a lower floor somewhere below. He descended one step at a time, his breathing hitching whenever the stairs let out even the faintest creak. The lower level was just as dark, but not as quiet as the floor above him. In the distance, Will heard a soft thudding.

 

_Old plumbing pipes._

 

But Will knew better; the continuous thudding told him so.  He travelled down the winding corridors of the basement floor, walls cracked and barren, to the sole opening it led to and from which the noise came from. The door to the room had been unhinged, and Will swerved the light away from the door frame to the side. He braced himself in those few seconds he spent in the blinding darkness before bringing the light back in front of him. The thudding did, indeed, not come from the plumbing system in the mansion. He entered the room, creeping closer but maintaining a fair distance from the man who was banging his forehead on the wall. He shuffled away from him, stopping when he reached the corner of the wall. Hopeful the man would continue undisturbed, his shaky hand illuminated the rest of the room, and saw the room was empty save a door. He resumed his shuffling around the corner, when the banging stopped.

 

A quick wave of silence entrenched the room, before a low croaking broke it. Will’s head turned to the man, blinking his eyes widely in the dark before quickly illuminating the man who had turned to face him. The face was revealed to be that of Larry Wells, with thin strings of blood horizontally lining his face from an open wound on his forehead. The croaking continued, drawn out by the man’s steady face. Will backed up, rushing his way to the door, and only stopping when he bumped into it. The light stayed on Larry’s face, while Will temporarily transferred the knife into his back pocket, and used the free hand to turn the knob. He pushed the door, feeling a bolt of relief when he felt it open. His sights remained on the old man until the view was obstructed by the closing of the door. He leaned against it, hearing the faint croaking on the other side but knowing the faintness meant he hadn’t moved from his spot. He took a moment to breathe and gulped a thick pool of saliva.  At the very far end of the hallway, Will caught the soft hue of an orange glow emanating from an open room, and reflecting off the opposite wall.  All these doors and winding hallways, Will was beginning to feel he was in some sort of maze. He flicked out the knife, and headed towards it, leaving Wells to his lonely sounds.

 

What greeted him was a ring of uneven candles surrounding what Will realized was a bloodied organ in the middle of the floor. An internal disquiet told him the organ looked too fresh. His eyes drifted to the red markings that stained the walls top to bottom, in a language Will couldn’t decipher nor had ever seen. A movement in the corner of his left eye caught him off guard. He took a double glance at the knot of black snakes residing there; it alarmed him that he hadn’t seen them before. But they looked benign, too occupied looping into one another, the smaller snakes hiding beneath the bigger ones, to even bother him. He shone the light to his right, through an entryway that led to an adjacent room, darker and more inhabited than the one he stood in.

 

Gory bodies hung from the ceiling by thick hooks, their heads covered in black plastic bags, and tied around the necks with tape. The strip door curtain hanging from the doorway partially hindered the view of grisly figures bent over a bath tub positioned beyond the rows of hanging meat. Their blood-slick bodies rocked back and forth, and in between the frantic movements, Will caught the glimpse of a limp arm hanging over the edge of the tub.

 

_Quiet. Run._

 

He felt the immediate urge to run tightening in his gut – _Quiet_ \- vibrating in his arms and swelling in his legs.

 

_Run._

 

His attempt to escape discreetly was interrupted by a familiar croaking that stiffened Will in the seconds thereafter. His stomach dropped when he swerved around and was reacquainted with Larry Wells’ dreaded face; he had followed him here. He turned back to see the figures over the bath tub swiftly turned at the noise. In one second, a unison screeching overpowering Wells left all of their mouths, exposing black teeth and ripped tongues, and in the next, they were charging at him with bloody hand saws raised in the air. Will ran out, passing Larry who remained unbothered, zooming through the room with the casted circle and out onto the hallway. He ran down the length of it, not knowing where to go, but the wheezing, and furor some distance behind him pushed him onward. He rounded the curve of the hallway when his feet missed a step. Will fell and rolled down a long, sloped decline. When his moving body lost momentum, rolling to a stop, and before the dust he had disturbed settled, a quick glance around told him he had fallen through a large hole in the floor, down onto this sub-basement level. He got up and ran as fast as his legs could carry him, lifting puffs of dust with each step. Never mind the fever that introduced his body to a pounding ache.  Amidst his wheezing and fuzzy vision, he couldn’t see or hear anyone chasing him. The relief he got from this was short-lived when the flashlight started flickering.

 

“No.”

 

He stopped running, to bang it in his hands as he tried catching his breath. The light shut off and Will stood still in the complete darkness. His banging accelerated and no matter his efforts, the flashlight refused to turn back on. For a split second, he thought he had felt a damp burst of air brush against his face.  He froze and quieted his wheezing; holding in his breath to get a sense of what he had felt. A chill crept under his skin when another burst of damp air hit him in the face, this time stronger than before. In the split second the flashlight turned back on, Will was knocked off his feet, falling back and landing on the floor with a loud thud. The image of the flashlight rolling away was the last he saw, with the sound of his body dragging down the hallway lulling him unconscious.


End file.
